Horizontally flipping images ...

[Hamish Gill]

I remember someone on here did this to a photo of a train ... Not sure who it was?
It really worked!
I've foud my self doing it quite a lot as often it makes no difference to the content ie a tree still looks like a tree both ways round ... But sometimes it drastically improves a composition!
Does anyone else do this?
Does anyone feel as though it is cheating?

Here is an example

flipped

img297-2 by Hamish_Gill, on Flickr

not flipped

img297 by Hamish_Gill, on Flickr

Imo the first is a lot better ...

 

[Chris Dodkin]

Cheater!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Bah, a step to take care of mistakes god made establishing proper composition ...
... To butcher the quote

 

[Pete Askew]

I rarely do it myself but not due to any specific objection to it as a process. I guess it just never occurs to me. OK, not for compositional reasons, But I recall that Gene Nokon used to present draft portraits to subjects as flipped images (negative upside down in the carrier during printing) to choose the final shot because people are more used to seeing themselves in a mirror. But the final print would be the 'right' way round.

For artistic purposes I see nothing to object about doing it.

 

[adrian jordin]

The train picture was mine...and I did it by accident

http://www.realphotographersforum.com/general/2788-funny-thing-happened-way-scanner.html

 

[Hamish Gill]

Ah... Yes... I remember now!
And oddly enough that's what got me thinking about it again
I was scanning some negs the wrong way around to save having to cut them in to 2's ...
I'll post the shots when I get to work...

 

[Ralph Thornton]

I'd flip horizontally if that improved the photo markedly, BUT

Not if it caused words or letter to be reversed AND
Not if there were identifiable landscape features that would obviously look wrong.

I remember once having a slide printed at a photo shop. They reversed the slide and the image was therefore flipped. I complained and the shop owner said, "Who's gonna know?" I told him, I know, so he finally relented and made a new print.

 

[Hamish Gill]

"whos gonna know" ... who did he think the photo was for ... cheeky bugger!

Ive added a couple of shots to the op to demo my point...

 

[Ralph Thornton]

Here's one,

Which one of the three images in flipped horizontally? Love my grandson, BTW!

 

[Hamish Gill]

Far right is my guess!

 

[Pete Askew]

Middle I reckon. The hat is the same way round in the outer two and he has a tendency to open his left eye more than his right.

 

[Ralph Thornton]

Far right is my guess!

Good one Hamish. I didn't want the far right photo to have Henry looking away from the other two shots. So I flipped him. I still think he looks pretty good. But then he is my grandson.

 

[Hamish Gill]

Good one Hamish. I didn't want the far right photo to have Henry looking away from the other two shots. So I flipped him. I still think he looks pretty good. But then he is my grandson.

That was the only reason I could think you would have done it ... and why i said it
... Id have done the same!

 

[Pete Askew]

And the badge on the hat?

 

[Hamish Gill]

And the badge on the hat?

someone has a bigger monitor than me