Most newspaper editors have come across a photo which is so good only that its sin is the height is longer than the length. Technically, that photo is called a portrait.
The opposite is a landscape which is more detailed and deeper. Despite many photo editing apps coming up, none has entirely cured the curse of portraits. Most media illiterate folks excitedly send photos to journalists when told to have some courtesy contributions but the photos have to be cut to fit the house style guide.
Most of this comes at the expense of distorting the pics. Some may come off as irregular oblongs.
It is now an open secret that we editors hate portraits. We do. Because they don’t say much. Because some are shot from shadows. Others are blurred. Even worse, some lack focus.
There is no sense and detail in those shots.
Then when patience is tested and all the portraits are lined up in a horizontal line, they don’t exactly make a landscape even if that was the aim of the creator.
When I see people smiling for group photos, cheeky crowds getting to shoot a memory photo that will create nostalgia of moments spent, I often see some being condemned to portraits-which we have no love lost.
I shouted at an amateur that they should make their smartphone slide sideways before taking those shots. Because it was a repeated mistake. This cost them a smile of the next photo but at least it was shot in landscape. Not portrait.
By MUSYOKA NGUI
The author is Editor-in-Chief, Mwingi Times