Chopped Heads

CMoore · Sep 24, 2021

Like in the link below

When i See/Read critiques of photos, i often hear something like................Great Shot, but you should have tried to include--------
All of her fingers
His whole shoe
All of that cigarette pack
The last letter of that sign
Etc etc etc

But when it comes to clipping peoples head, THAT seems to skate criticism.

I am not saying any of it is Right or Wrong. I like A Lot of the photos i see...including a very pretty girl recently in The Gallery... where a photographer did choose to cut the top of a head. I am just wondering (maybe i am wrong) why it is OK to choose to exclude part of a head, but not part of a hand or sign, or whatever.
Thank You

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8347/8228559157_13ac249a32_b.jpg

MattKing · Sep 24, 2021

If a crop leads to the viewer feeling that they are missing part of something, you generally want to avoid that crop, unless that is the effect you are looking for.
For some reason, cropping out an entire hand or foot is less unsettling than cropping out part of one. And cropping that goes right through a human joint also makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

CMoore · Sep 25, 2021

MattKing said:
If a crop leads to the viewer feeling that they are missing part of something, you generally want to avoid that crop, unless that is the effect you are looking for.
For some reason, cropping out an entire hand or foot is less unsettling than cropping out part of one. And cropping that goes right through a human joint also makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

Typical..................101 possibilities.
Just as far as the photo in the link goes.
If you know, did that sort of become "Hip" during that time, especially with "Celebrities".
Most of my interest in "Art" is circa 1960-1980. It seems like a lot of photographers shot portraits, album covers, fashion ads In That Style.

I suppose that is what i was really wondering when i posted this.
Was it something new then, that the "Cool Young" photographers did.?
And what did they think it added to the composition, compared to if they had included just another inch or two of the top of their head.?
Maybe it DOES make you look at the photo a bit harder with the head cropped like that.?

Vaughn · Sep 25, 2021

Must be something new -- several decades of critiques, etc, I never heard much about slicing things as something not to do. It was generally considered as useful visual tool as it can suggest many different things depending on the context,. While in most cases, one needed an obvious visual or stated reasons to slice body parts...and not just done willy-nilly.

CMoore · Sep 25, 2021

Vaughn said:
Must be something new -- several decades of critiques, etc, I never heard much about slicing things as something not to do. It was generally considered as useful visual tool as it can suggest many different things depending on the context,. While in most cases, one needed an obvious visual or stated reasons to slice body parts...and not just done willy-nilly.

You Could Be Right
I am new to this, so..............last 5 years would be about the extent my experience.

David A. Goldfarb · Sep 25, 2021

I’ve been hosting and producing a video series, and find it’s often an issue with my guests. We record with Zoom in speaker view, and we have a professional editor, so we try to make it look more like a talk show than a webinar on Zoom. Generally, I tell people to keep their eyes in the top third of the frame and don’t worry if the top of their head is cut off. The top of my head is cut off most of the time. It keeps it intimate, because the face fills the screen, and focuses the viewers’ attention. It’s about the eyes and not just being a talking head. Some of the guests are uncomfortable with that, so I let them drift toward the middle of the frame, but they look more authoritative, if they can stay in the top of the frame.

AgX · Sep 25, 2021

Some people are regarded as headless. A photographer should play on this...

juan · Sep 25, 2021

Mortensen wrote an entire book on posing models and included a lot about cropping in camera.
60-Minutes was famous for close up interview shots that cropped the tops of heads. Others news shooters followed.
As for the original image, yeah, that was the way some of the cool photographers shot for a while.

guangong · Sep 25, 2021

The great invention of Western art was the picture frame. A frame creates an independent world in itself. Anything that carries the eye outside the frame destroys the composition. Whether a head, foot, fingers, door, etc are cropped makes no difference. All depends upon a given composition. Some pictures will be strengthen by a cropped head, others will be weakened by such a crop. There can be no hard or fast rule.

removed account4 · Sep 25, 2021

Fred Astaire used to get angry when they cropped any of his body when he was dancing...
Didn't Edward Weston crop body parts in some of his portraits ? Nicholas Nixon used to crop body parts.

Whether cropping heads, body parts &c is good or not I guess depends on if it works or not ( and if you are famous/get a lot of "likes" )
Theo van Doesburgh was really ticked off when Piet Mondrian turned the pure square on its point.

From what I hear, rules are meant to be broken .

MattKing · Sep 25, 2021

jnantz said:
Fred Astaire used to get angry when they cropped any of his body when he was dancing...

Which makes sense - with dancers, cropping a body part is like when someone plays only an excerpt of a musician's performance.

Vaughn · Sep 25, 2021

CMoore said:
You Could Be Right
I am new to this, so..............last 5 years would be about the extent my experience.

And I was involved with photography as part of an Art Dept at a university for a few decades -- students were encourage to 'break the rules'...as long as they were able/willing to acknowledge the rules they were breaking.

CMoore · Sep 25, 2021

guangong said:
The great invention of Western art was the picture frame. A frame creates an independent world in itself. Anything that carries the eye outside the frame destroys the composition. Whether a head, foot, fingers, door, etc are cropped makes no difference. All depends upon a given composition. Some pictures will be strengthen by a cropped head, others will be weakened by such a crop. There can be no hard or fast rule.

michael_r said:
It is ok to do whatever you choose. If people don’t like it, fk em.

You two probably sum it up as well as possible.
I suppose i should have known a question like the one i asked would end up here.

I guess a Much MORE interesting question would be... WHY a certain photographer did what they did.
If any of you are tight with David Bailey, perhaps you could ask him, why he chopped off the top of Mike Kanes head.................then report back here.

CMoore · Sep 25, 2021

Vaughn said:
And I was involved with photography as part of an Art Dept at a university for a few decades -- students were encourage to 'break the rules'...as long as they were able/willing to acknowledge the rules they were breaking.

Sounds good to me.
A smart move on the part of you and the Art Dept.

gone · Sep 25, 2021

The only steadfast rule that I know of is: you just do whatever is needed to improve the composition. Period. And only you would know what makes your shot better or worse. Other people will always have their own opinions, but yours is the only one that counts.

pentaxuser · Sep 25, 2021

MattKing said:
And cropping that goes right through a human joint also makes a lot of people uncomfortable.

Certainly true of necks in days gone by

pentaxuser

Pieter12 · Sep 25, 2021

If a cropped body part looks uncomfortable like an amputation or injury, it is not usually considered a good idea. Cropping at joints is an example. Cropping the top or side of the head tends to bring attention to the eyes and mouth the shape of the nose, usually the more interesting parts of the face. But there are exceptions to every rule or convention.

wiltw · Sep 25, 2021

Books on taking headshots published 30 years ago seldom included photos of the tops of heads clipped off in headshots.
Today, looking at what folks pass off as 'headshots' often includes

chopped off tops of heads
waist-up shots, not merely tightly framed heads

One wonders when terms have really been legitimately redefined, and when folks simply fail to understand correctly what a term means?! Like 'bokeh' gets butchered today.
'rule breaking' is one thing; to not know or understand the rule is something different (ignorance).

Pieter12 · Sep 25, 2021

wiltw said:
Books on taking headshots published 30 years ago seldom included photos of the tops of heads clipped off in headshots.
Today, looking at what folks pass off as 'headshots' often includes

chopped off tops of heads

waist-up shots, not merely tightly framed heads

One wonders when terms have really been legitimately redefined, and when folks simply fail to understand correctly what a term means?! Like 'bokeh' gets butchered today.
'rule breaking' is one thing; to not know or understand the rule is something different (ignorance).

A headshot is usually something an actor or model (or their agent) uses as a leave-behind or to send off to a potential client in response to a casting call, and is just a reference in most cases. What the OP showed as an example is more likely an editorial portrait.

RalphLambrecht · Nov 27, 2021

CMoore said:
Like in the link below

When i See/Read critiques of photos, i often hear something like................Great Shot, but you should have tried to include--------
All of her fingers
His whole shoe
All of that cigarette pack
The last letter of that sign
Etc etc etc

But when it comes to clipping peoples head, THAT seems to skate criticism.

I am not saying any of it is Right or Wrong. I like A Lot of the photos i see...including a very pretty girl recently in The Gallery... where a photographer did choose to cut the top of a head. I am just wondering (maybe i am wrong) why it is OK to choose to exclude part of a head, but not part of a hand or sign, or whatever.
Thank You

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8347/8228559157_13ac249a32_b.jpg

only photographersget away with chopping off body parts. others are prosecuted.

CMoore · Nov 27, 2021

RalphLambrecht said:
only photographersget away with chopping off body parts. others are prosecuted.

A little "Holiday Humor" ..... from our literary friend

c.d.ewen · Nov 27, 2021

Reminds me of what turned out to be a useful exercise - one summer, taking family photos, I loaned my camera to a daughter-in-law who had a good eye. Looking at all the resulting photos was quite educational. I'm an "includer", she's a "chopper". Startling to see the difference all at once. I allow myself to chop now.

Charley

grahamp · Nov 27, 2021

The human brain is good at pattern matching and extrapolation. Leave in enough and the viewer is happy that the rest of the body is just out of sight. With joints, it can leave the length of a limb unknown, which breaks the pattern matching. Cropping away from the joint leaves enough information. Extreme crops work because the pattern is no longer a whole person, but just the visible part.

This may be down to an atavistic response to not being able to see enough of a potential predator

Another example is a picture with hands clasped with interlaced fingers. This is often too complex to view, while one hand wrapped in front of the other is simpler to understand.

macfred · Nov 27, 2021

''Instead of chopping yourself down to fit the world, chop the world down to fit yourself ... '' D.H. Lawrence

drkhalsa · Nov 27, 2021

Rhubarb!

Chopped Heads

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MattKing

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CMoore

Vaughn

CMoore

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AgX

juan

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Vaughn

CMoore

CMoore

gone

pentaxuser

Pieter12

wiltw

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CMoore

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grahamp

macfred

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