Mastering Square Format Instant Photography
All squares are rectangles but not every rectangle is a square! Read on for some tips for mastering your composition in the elusive 1x1 aspect ratio.
First thing’s first: The following tips are meant to guide you towards expertly composing your shots into a square frame. They’re not meant to be rigid rules, but you should master them in order to break them and make them your own! Most importantly, these tips are meant to help you make the most of those 8 little frames you have in your instant film cartridge. Putting careful thought into what’s in your photograph will make every frame a worthwhile, intentional photograph.
Tip Number One: Familiarize Yourself with the Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is a great way to balance your square photos and create interest to draw your viewer’s eye to the subject of your photo.
To achieve this, look through the viewfinder of your camera and imagine that you are looking through a grid made up of 2 vertical lines and two horizontal line splitting up the scene in thirds. Try lining up your subject along one of the dividing lines OR at any of the four intersecting points.
In the photo to the left, the horizon stops right about the bottom third of the photo. And the top of the Sears Tower (or Willis Tower, as it has come to be renamed) hits right at the top third of the photo. Although the Sears Tower isn’t lined up with one of the vertical lines, the photo still creates some interest by drawing your eye upward in the photo.
How to Break The Rule of Thirds
Once you have mastered the rule of thirds, it’s time to throw it out the window. It is certainly possible to achieve a great composition by filling the entire frame with your subject, squarely in the middle or not at all!
In this photo, the palm trees take up about half of the frame but is still visually pleasing.
Another example of breaking the rule of thirds: this pinata was shot right in the middle of the photo, and fills up most of the image (without being too close that it’s out of focus) and we can tell it’s the subject…and there’s a fiesta going on!
Tip Number Two: Change Your Perspective to Give Your Photos Depth
Depending on the instant camera you’re using, there are several things you can do to manipulate the perspective of your photo to draw the eye to —or away from— your subject. SX-70 and 680 Polaroid cameras are SLR cameras that allow you get close to your subject at a minimum of 10 inches and at large apertures (small f-number) in low light conditions. The result is a beautiful close up with your subject being in focus while the background is almost all blurred out and minimizes any distraction from your subject.
In this photo, the speaker and needle are in focus, so as to help us envision the spinning of the record and imagine music playing. The knobs were purposely left out of focus since reading their labels might distract us from the actual record being played.
Because most instant cameras have long focal lengths and a small aperture, achieving a shallow depth of field like this can be a little more challenging. Smaller apertures tend to keep everything in the frame in focus.
To combat this, you can manipulate the composition of your photo to create depth by changing your perspective, or the angle/viewpoint that you’re taking the photo.
In the photo above, instead of taking the photo of the surfboards head on, I stepped over a few steps to capture the ones in front of me as well as down the sidewalk to create a sense of distance and capture the feeling of being overwhelmed by so many surfboards!
The same can be said about this shot of some piano keys, only I crouched down to the level of the keys to elongate the length of the piano.
This isn’t really a rule, but more of a guide to add creativity to your shots. Try shooting the same subject but from different viewpoints, such as above your subject, below, up close and far away.
This shot of the Sears Tower is dramatically different from the first in this blog post because it was taken at a “worm’s eye view”, or a really low viewpoint looking upward. The sense of perspective creates a vanishing point making the top of the building almost invisible.
OR Show no Perspective At All!
Okay, that sounds wrong, but hear me out. In the context of photo composition, sometimes a flatlay or close up that fills the whole frame is just as interesting as a shot with a one point or two point perspective. You can play around with the positive space (your subject) and negative space (area surrounding your subject) of a photo to capture your subject in different contexts. Aiming for a minimalist aesthetic? Try shooting your subjects with more negative space creates an airy look. Want to get up close and personal? Try to fill the frame with your subject as much as you can! Check out these examples below for more inspiration:
Calder’s Flamingo, the subject, is engulfed by the buildings behind it, the negative space, creating an image that looks almost abstract due to the lack of depth in the photo.
The same can be said about this photo of a lamp against partially opened blinds. It’s hard to tell exactly what is the subject— the lamp or the blinds? That’s not necessarily a bad thing as it draws interest from the viewer. The flatness also lends itself to creating graphic shapes and lines that help make this seem more abstract than realistic.
In this photo, it the entirety of the frame was dedicated to this garden of exotic flowers at the Garfield Park Conservatory. And for good reason, too! When shooting this, I got as close as my lens’ focal distance allowed me to go and at the level of the flower bed to fill the frame up with these cool looking plants. Had I included a little bit of the pathway below or the wall above, it would have distracted the viewer’s eye from the plants.
Tip Number Three: Symmetry Keeps Everything Balanced
Just as in the real world, our eyes are naturally drawn to symmetry in art. We look for the line of symmetry to guide us through the photo. And when a photo is perfectly symmetrical, it gives us a sense of balance and is pleasing to look at.
Not much can be said about this photo, except that its mirrored lines pulls us in to the photo. It also helps that vanishing point is in the dead center of the photo, so once we’re pulled in, our eyes are left at the horizon.
BUT You Can Also Mix Things Up
Sure, symmetry is great and all, but when things fall out of line it turns into an interesting an unexpected shot! Shake things up by intentionally breaking the line of symmetry or include an off kilter subject to create an element of surprise to the photo.
This photo is a perfect example of imperfection: The book is slightly slanted to break the line of symmetry and there’s an added element on the left that is a base of a lamp. This look away from perfection and symmetry makes the scene look “lived in” and not staged.
Practice Makes Perfect…Style
Now’s your turn to take your working knowledge of your instant camera and these tips out into the world and practice composing! Your skills will progress and your photographic eye will develop as you slowly find your style. Once you’ve honed in on your photography style, breaking the rules is highly recommended!
So grab a camera and some film and start shooting today!
