should I straighten?

[size13]

I take sailing pictures on both lakes and the sea.
On the sea it's pretty easy to straighten the pictures if you can see the horizon but on lakes in much harder.
There are times when I'll straighten a picture based on something that "should" be straight but that then may get cropped out (e.g. road, telegraph pole etc..) The problem then comes that lake edges with perspective are not straight but I wonder if I should make them that way in order to ease the eye better, even if it's not strictly an accurate view.
This is a good example, it was straightened in Lightroom then cropped...


Anybody else got examples?

[Nick M]

It's a tricky one because, as you say, sometimes the perspective can give rise to a misleadingly wonky horizon whereas vertical elements can be perfectly, well, vertical. But then if you straighten it you may end up with the boats assuming a slightly unnatural attitude on what is clearly a windy day...

I tend to approach it from the rather more subjective point of view of what looks and feels right. In your picture, the number of vertical elements is small (and they're tucked away in the background) but the image just feels wonky because of the angle of the waterline in the image. I take quite a few motorsport pictures and quite often I'll straighten the image based on the car being horizontal if there are no compelling vertical elements to which my eyes would otherwise be drawn, purely because that feels right.

I guess there's also the added element of lens distortion with wider angle lenses and how that can play into the scene, but if you're using zooms and manage to isolate the boat from the background with large apertures then you may find that helps to remove some of the 'problem' of wonky horizons.

[andy-xr]

I would disagree with you on that photo....the white sail going into the greens would possibly be a niggle, but I'd potentially crop in an awful lot more to lose the background as it's distracting

(*edit - on reading back it seems I would agree with you!)

My offering is NSFW so I've linked it - I framed against the windows and wanted a subject angle, the angle I got wasnt exactly what I was looking for, but it still works for me

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4084_c462c5717d_z.j...

Edited by andy-xr on Monday 1st November 18:03

[RobDickinson]

The subjects in this instance are the boats and there the important framing items, you can go with an unlevel horizon here I think

[rottie102]

Tough one, it looks either wonky or boring

Edited by rottie102 on Monday 1st November 17:53

[GetCarter]

It's a tricky one. Obviously with an uninterrupted sea horizon it has to be proper straight, but when looking across lochs or lakes the horizon is rarely 'straight'.

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I generally ignore the straight brigade and do what looks right. The Greeks did it with the Parthenon, who am I to argue!?

[Fordo]

i say make it even more wonky!

My feeling is horizon should either be level, or at such an angle it looks like its on purpose for compositional reasons. Anything just a tony bit off level looks like a mistake.

Nice photo though- definatly doesn't work when level though.

I think i've worked out why - in the original, the horizon is off, but the boats, where your attention is drawn to, are pleasingly level in relation to each other.

Edited by Fordo on Monday 1st November 19:07

[Simpo Two]

Level for me; I really hate things slighty on the piss. Agree with Fordo that if it's going to be wrong, it's got to be majorly wrong.

Mr Carter's composition is level; the difference is that the water's edge on the left is closer to the camera than the water's edge on the right so it's not an horizon.