Portrait Problems

Regular visitors here will have noted that I've been posting a lot of photos of performers lately. One of the reasons is that my photography interests lately have been in two directions - portraiture and landscapes. In part these two interests stem from two lenses I have - an 85mm lens (the focal length generally agreed to be most useful for portraits) and a 20mm wide angle lens that should be good for landscapes. I've been having more success with portraits but I feel that I tend to end up with the same old head and shoulders composition. Today's two photos illustrate two different choices for composition. Above is what I usually end up with - the subject (in this case, the lovely Esther-Ruth Teel and her Celtic harp) is pretty much centered in a 3:2 frame. Below is a different crop of the same photo - a close-up of just head and shoulders but sharing a square frame with the harp. I think I prefer the version below but I will be interested in any opinions visitors care to share.

Night Market Music - Dave Harris

When I left Karly Summers and walked down Ship Point Pier through the night market I was happy to find our fine local one man band, Dave Harris, at the other end of the pier. Dave was in excellent form and I always enjoy his music. Once again, I initially was photographing using a wide angle lens (24mm) in the above photo and then I switched to the portrait lens (85mm) for the photo below. And, once again, as in the pair of Karly Summers photos (yesterday's post) I prefer the portrait photo below. It's a difficult choice that ultimately comes down to whether you want context or not.