Chopping off heads

Yeah, I have no problem with "chopping"; it can be powerful IF the subject warrants the crop.

Shmoo said:

In all seriousness, cropping/chopping off parts of the anatomy can be used to emphasize the image or the emotion. A lot of film makers use it to great effect.

S

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Certainly; I feel that the image draws the viewer's attention to the subject's eyes.

Cheryl Jacobs said:

Do what you love the way you want to do it, and you'll draw the people who appreciate it.

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I must say I agree with Cheryl (and with most tips on her website). Like almost everything in life, it's better to do things the way you prefer doing them... as it attracts people that "think alike" and makes your life a lot more pleasant than, having fruitless discussions over and over again.
Personally I am a head-chopper... whether you like it or not ;-). As Cheryl points out: "Know your style before you hang out your shingle. If you don't, your clients will dictate your style to you. That makes you nothing more than a picture taker. Changing your style later will force you to start all over again, and that's tough.".

Ah I thought of this thread when I got some colour prints back yesterday... Wish my brother-in-law would have looked up a bit and swept his hair out of his face but, no, he had a bottle of beer in the other hand out of shot...and I chopped off his head too. :rolleyes: I don't think it's as artsy as the nice shots on the rest of this thread.

When I was about eleven years old, I was the only person with a camera at my aunt's wedding (despite my father being a wedding photographer at the time).

I had an Agfa Isolette which I used to produce a lovely set of perfectly exposed images. The problem was that the subjects heads were missing in most of them. I assume that I was a bit enthusiatic with the shutter and pushed the camera down at the same time.


Steve.

DarkroomExperimente said:

wasn't Ansel Adams who said all the rules about composition were irrelevant and useless?

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. .. .. or was it Philip Glass?

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I think it is a totally personal thing. Cropping to less than a full head has always been done. It seems it was quite fashionable in the 60s/70s and that's the thing, it is a stylistic represenation which may or may not work.

See:

http://www.npg.org.uk/live/photographers.asp

and look at photographers like David Bailey and Gered Mankowitz

http://www.mankowitz.com/frmsetmain.asp?link=Introduction.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/multimedia/sixties/