Hy kies landskapsfoto's in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik.

It means instead of when what follows is an action.

So in this sentence:

Hy kies landskapsfoto's in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik.

the part in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik means instead of using portrait photos.

A useful shortcut is:

• in plaas van + noun = instead of + noun
• in plaas daarvan om + verb phrase = instead of + -ing / instead of doing something

For example:

• in plaas van koffie = instead of coffee
• in plaas daarvan om koffie te drink = instead of drinking coffee

Because in plaas daarvan om is the normal fixed expression when Afrikaans is followed by a verb phrase.

You can think of daarvan as part of the idiom. Literally, it has a sense like of that, but in real use learners should usually just memorize the whole chunk:

in plaas daarvan om ... te ...

So:

• in plaas van portretfoto's = instead of portrait photos
• in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik = instead of using portrait photos

In plaas om on its own is not the standard form here.

This is the Afrikaans infinitive construction.

In English, we often use to + verb:

• to use
• to read
• to choose

In Afrikaans, after many expressions, the infinitive is built with:

om + ... + te + verb

So here:

• om ... te gebruik = to use

But because Afrikaans word order sends the verb to the end of the clause, the object comes before the verb:

• om portretfoto's te gebruik = to use portrait photos

You will see this pattern often:

• om Afrikaans te leer = to learn Afrikaans
• om die boek te lees = to read the book

Because in Afrikaans subordinate infinitive clauses, the main verb usually goes to the end.

So:

• om portretfoto's te gebruik
• literally: to portrait photos use

That may feel strange to an English speaker, but it is normal Afrikaans word order.

A useful pattern is:

om + object/details + te + verb

Examples:

• om die motor te koop = to buy the car
• om vroeg op te staan = to get up early
• om portretfoto's te gebruik = to use portrait photos

The apostrophe helps form the plural of certain words, especially words ending in a vowel like foto.

So:

• foto = photo
• foto's = photos

This is a normal spelling pattern in Afrikaans. The apostrophe prevents confusion and makes the plural easier to read.

Other similar examples:

• radio → radio's
• kamera → kamera's

So both landskapsfoto's and portretfoto's are plural forms meaning landscape photos and portrait photos.

Because Afrikaans strongly prefers compound words to be written as a single word.

So:

• landskap + foto → landskapsfoto
• portret + foto → portretfoto

Then the plural is added:

• landskapsfoto's
• portretfoto's

This is very common in Afrikaans. English often writes these as two words, but Afrikaans usually joins them.

For example:

• huis + deur → huisdeur
• son + lig → sonlig

The extra -s- in landskapsfoto is a linking sound that often appears in compounds.

In this sentence, kies takes a direct object, so no preposition is needed.

• Hy kies landskapsfoto's = He chooses landscape photos

That is the normal structure here.

Afrikaans does sometimes use kies vir, but not in this kind of straightforward choose something sentence. For learners, the safest pattern is:

• kies iets = choose something
• kies om iets te doen = choose to do something

So in this sentence, landskapsfoto's is simply the thing being chosen.

Yes, but the structure would have to change.

If you want to compare nouns, you use in plaas van:

• Hy kies landskapsfoto's in plaas van portretfoto's.
• He chooses landscape photos instead of portrait photos.

If you want to compare an action, you use in plaas daarvan om:

• Hy kies landskapsfoto's in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik.
• He chooses landscape photos instead of using portrait photos.

So both are possible, but they are not built in the same way.

Yes, it could be shorter.

A simpler version would be:

Hy kies landskapsfoto's in plaas van portretfoto's.

That means roughly the same thing: He chooses landscape photos instead of portrait photos.

The version with te gebruik is a bit more explicit because it focuses on the action of using portrait photos:

• not just the photos as items
• but the act of using them

So the longer sentence is not wrong at all; it just spells the idea out more clearly.

Hy means he.

The capital H is only there because it is the first word of the sentence. In the middle of a sentence, it would be hy.

Examples:

• Hy kies landskapsfoto's.
• Ek dink hy kies landskapsfoto's.

Unlike English, Afrikaans does not capitalize pronouns like he unless they begin a sentence.

They are built the same way grammatically.

Both are:

noun + noun compound + plural ending

So:

• landskap
  • foto → landskapsfoto → landskapsfoto's
• portret
  • foto → portretfoto → portretfoto's

The only small difference is that landskap becomes landskaps- in the compound, with a linking -s-. That is a common Afrikaans compound pattern.

But grammatically, both words function the same way in the sentence: they are plural nouns referring to kinds of photos.

Sometimes, yes, but the sentence would usually be reshaped a little.

For example:

• Hy kies eerder landskapsfoto's as portretfoto's.
• Hy kies landskapsfoto's eerder as portretfoto's.

That gives the sense of rather than or instead of.

However, in plaas daarvan om is especially useful when followed by a full verb phrase, like:

• in plaas daarvan om portretfoto's te gebruik

So eerder as and in plaas daarvan om can overlap in meaning, but they are not always interchangeable word-for-word.