The first article I ever had published was a photo essay in a travel magazine about car shows. Well, not about the shows, but about car “parts.” And the photos were pictures of hood ornaments, door handles, headlamps, etc.
My photographic predilections haven’t changed much since then, back in the early 1980s. I still immediately gravitate to the bits and pieces, rarely, very rarely, the entire car.
Here are a few images from the car shows Chris and I went to on Whidbey Island this summer. There are just four photos, actually, but two different versions of each. Why? Why feature both the full-frame image and a cropped, square version?
Two reasons. Instagram and marketing.
Instagram initially wanted pictures that were square. So that’s what I put there. Then they began accepting full-frame images. But all of my pictures I post online are in frames and they’re low-resolution. That’s on purpose. Makes them less liable to be stolen.
But a framed, non-square picture on Instagram gets chopped up and my pictures look stupid that way. So, square they remain.
And for marketing purposes, by offering my buyers on Fine Art America both a full-frame AND a square version, they have a choice. Easy.
Naturally, a lot of the pictures I make don’t work as squares, but some do, and here are four examples. All these pictures look good both in square and full-frame versions. You may prefer one over the other, but both versions look good. To me, at least!
Images Copyright ©2019 Carol Leigh
