Here’s a prime example of what I’m talking about not thinking vertical naturally. Gulls are great subjects! Guaranteed that if you watch them for ten minutes they will do something stupid making for a great click. Here, this Laughing Gull is trying to figure out how to get down this flat fish it found on North Beach. Lying on the beach shooting with the D4s / 800mm on the Panning Plate all the elements for a clean cover shot are in place. And had I been smart, I would have slid closer and made that vertical shot. But I didn’t. The question then that comes up is, “Can’t it be cropped into a vertical?” It most certainly can be and that does happen but here’s the problem with that train of thought. Someone has to think of that after seeing the horizontal, they must see in the photo and then think and then act on the thought “That would crop into a great vertical for a cover!” And there’s the problem. When you suggest the cover in a vertical you have much better odds of getting that cover then someone having to see it in your photo. And this whole discussion is just to get you to think beyond f/stop and shutter speed when you go click and to taking your photography to the next level of storyteller!