Beach is one of the most popular sites for taking pictures. Everybody loves beaches. It provides many things that can make stunning landscape photos, such as line, color, light, and plenty of open space.
Unfortunately, seeing so many pictures taken by neighbor, friends, or colleagues, many times it’s ruined by a simple mistake, a very basic error that isn’t even related with technique. Many failed to keep their photo straight. The photos look tilt to one side, either left or right.
One of the examples is like below (this was taken by me)
The sea looks like pouring its water out of the frame and the photo force whoever see it to tilt their head to the left. The photo is simply skewed and unsightly to look at.
Many photo I found is like this.
Compared to the photo at the top and below this paragraph, you surely can feel the difference. I believe you will agree that the two are better.
So, that’s why whenever you want to capture a moment in a beach, one of the most important things is to keep your picture straight.
To do this, there are several ways and even with smartphone camera, you can do this.
1/ Please pay attention on the horizon line before pushing the shutter release button. Give a few milliseconds for your eyes to check if the horizontal line is already straight. If not, please correct it
2/ Use the grid feature in your camera. Most of digital camera on your handphone has this feature and you should just activate it. The grid line is made following the basic photography technique called as “Rule of Thirds”
3/ Find three or structure that your eyes can use as benchmark. A building, hotel, may serve best for this purpose as they have symmetrical lines.
Very simple, am I right? Also, a very small, even tiny thing which many people overlooked but please remember that it can be decisive.
Please remember that photography is about combining many factors in a small frame. One tiny mistake can ruin everything. It’s better to take a bit more time than to have disappointing result.
I have tilted photos, what to do?
People make mistakes every time, me included as all of us are only human after all. Mistake is a middle name for us.
If you have tilted photos, don’t dispose them yet. In this digital era, there are lots of photo free editing software to correct tilted photos.
You can use Snapseed (for smartphone) or Photoscape (for desktop). Both have feature to make the tilted photo straight in no time. In Snapseed, you just need to push “rotate” menu and the software will repair the photo for you. In Photoscape, you need to do a bit more by using grid line provided.
However, I prefer to make sure my photo straight when taking pictures because the software will do cropping. This means, parts of photo will be cut and erased.
So, please bear in mind this simple thing whenever you play at beach and want to take a picture of your beloved one. I believe you don’t want your girlfriend or boyfriend shows sour face when they find their photos tilted.