Cropping and Street Photography

logan2z · Jan 20, 2020

I know the subject of cropping comes up from time to time and I usually fall on the side of not cropping my photos. But I've been shooting more street photography of late and find myself considering cropping some photos in order to make them stronger. I'm sure there are some people who shoot street photos who manage to frame their photos well enough in camera to avoid cropping after the fact, but I sometimes find it quite challenging on bustling city streets to get the framing of a photo just right.

I've been making some prints in preparation to show some of my work locally and have been going through some older contact sheets. I found one photo that I had previously rejected, but I now realize that a somewhat aggressive crop will turn a mediocre photo into something much stronger. I like the cropped photo quite a bit and think it will fit into my series well, but I can't shake this niggling feeling that I'm somehow 'cheating' by using a significant crop to get to the end result. I don't 'spray and pray' or shoot from the hip and I recall focusing on the subjects of the photo because I felt they were interesting, so perhaps I'm being too hard on myself. I also know that some very well-known photographers (HCB, Robert Frank, Elliot Erwitt, etc.) cropped their photos (significantly in some cases) so perhaps I'm in good company I've also been looking closely at the work of Leon Levinstein (the Steidl Levinstein monograph is terrific, BTW) and, although I've never seen photos of his contact sheets, I'd be very surprised if his photos aren't cropped rather heavily.

Despite the fact that I shoot street photos using 35mm film, I don't print very large (8x10, sometimes 11x14) so I don't think image quality will suffer greatly if I crop this particular photo the way I'd like. I'm just struggling to get past the fact that I have to crop it at all in order to produce a strong photo.

Am I making too big a deal about cropping some of my street photography in order to produce a stronger result? I've made myself feel sufficiently guilty that I'm considering not including the cropped photo in my series

FWIW, some 'famous' crops:

Henri Cartier-Bresson:

Robert Frank, 'The Americans'

Radical crop by Elliot Erwitt

Pieter12 · Jan 20, 2020

There is absolutely no reason not to crop. You already started cropping when you took the photo...you did not include everything then. Anyone who tells you you are violating some sort of principal has nothing better to do. Street photography generally is catch as catch can. Cropping becomes inevitable.

ic-racer · Jan 20, 2020

The only time I don't crop is when cropping is needed.

Sirius Glass · Jan 20, 2020

Street photography lends itself to shooting wider than needed and darkroom cropping. Crop the subject closely and a slight movement will eliminate an important part of the composition.

MattKing · Jan 20, 2020

ic-racer said:
The only time I don't crop is when cropping is needed.

I'm guessing that this is missing a "n't" at the end of the second "is"

MattKing · Jan 20, 2020

If you don't feel comfortable cropping, then that is fine.
This means though that you will have to either live with your discomfort, or reject photos entirely that contain images of merit.
It only matters to you.
I have absolutely no problem with cropping, although I enjoy printing the whole negative in order to include the entire image along with the neat artifacts that my negative holders impart in certain circumstances.

Colin Corneau · Jan 20, 2020

Regardless of the genre (and street is my loved personal favourite), getting it right in-camera to begin with is ALWAYS best. Exposure, and cropping.

But, life happens. So when it does, and the specific image is improved by it, you crop.

FWIW, I always shoot my street work full frame and uncropped -- maybe 15-25% get cropped because frankly the stuff that's taken out is 'fat'.

dmr · Jan 20, 2020

I sure do it.

I know some "purists" say to compose in the finder, but when The Decisive Moment (tm) hits, you often need to shoot quickly and don't really have time to compose.

Those who street shoot from the hip or from the lap can compose only approximately, and those who spray-and-pray, well, they don't compose.

Ko.Fe. · Jan 20, 2020

You are not getting close enough and you haven’t practiced enough in it if you in need to crop significantly. If I see it to be far, I just not taking it. Only if I have time to get close. Sometimes I run for it.
I do crop sometimes if I’m not lazy with my non autofocus enlarger. Then instead of entire frame I print on entire print.

logan2z · Jan 20, 2020

Ko.Fe. said:
You are not getting close enough and you haven’t practiced enough in it if you in need to crop significantly.

I'm generally able to get in pretty close but, as someone pointed out above, sometimes something unfolds suddenly and it's simply not possible to get in close enough before the moment is gone. Those are the cases I'm referring to which can require more extensive cropping. These cases are generally the exception rather than the rule.

Ko.Fe. · Jan 20, 2020

logan2z said:
I'm generally able to get in pretty close but, as someone pointed out above, sometimes something unfolds suddenly and it's simply not possible to get in close enough before the moment is gone. Those are the cases I'm referring to which can require more extensive cropping. These cases are generally the exception rather than the rule.

I went through same excuse stage, I printed, I didn't liked it.
But it might work for you.

logan2z · Jan 20, 2020

Ko.Fe. said:
I went through same excuse stage

Kodachromeguy · Jan 21, 2020

Sometimes you need to crop because geography (or geometry) puts some uninteresting elements in the frame. I was just scanning some 1994 negatives from New York City when this topic on Photrio came up. This is Allen Street in the Lower East Side looking north. I framed it vertically because I wanted to include the tops of the bare trees. But the pavement in the foreground held little of interest, so I cropped some of it out. This is from Kodak Gold 100-3, which still looks great 25 years later. The lens was my 35mm f/3.5 Summaron-M, which had once been infected by fungus and had most of the internal coating removed during cleaning. It was a lovely little optic.

Deleted member 88956 · Jan 21, 2020

Sirius Glass said:
Street photography lends itself to shooting wider than needed and darkroom cropping. Crop the subject closely and a slight movement will eliminate an important part of the composition.

100% agree.

Street photography floats potential subject within A frame, but not THE frame. Sometimes everything falls into place just right, most of the time there will be visual distractors that need to be chopped off.

Deleted member 88956 · Jan 21, 2020

MattKing said:
I'm guessing that this is missing a "n't" at the end of the second "is"

I smell sarcasm in that line.

Deleted member 88956 · Jan 21, 2020

HCB was actually quite strict with not cropping (exceptions don't prove anything), but he was also known for being crazy about which & what final image being published. For the tenths of thousands of negatives he shot and public never got to see, one could claim he had a different approach to cropping ... just dump everything that did not come out right, which to me is such a waste of film.

Cropping has always been part of composing, and never has it been deemed as an adjustment of lacking photographic skills.

radiant · Jan 21, 2020

Wait, the Erwitt's dog+women's foot was so cropped! I've always though it isn't cropped at all!

Why wouldn't one crop if it is needed? Again it is the end result which matters. I feel that - for example - John Free is just showing off when he is showing prints that are uncropped. Of course it is a good skill to frame the scene correctly when shooting but I don't understand why it needs to be so strict. Aiming for always full frame prints can have it's downsides.

Deleted member 88956 · Jan 21, 2020

I sometimes play a cropping game with an image by creating several completely different ones, all from the same shot. It also helps training my eye as cropping gives different perspective on how color, shapes, shadows and lights play with one another. Easy to do with digital especially, if resolution allows for massive crops with little loss in technical quality.

This is not the same as saying ... just shoot and see what comes later, this is what a lot of current "masters" of the medium do regularly.

Luckily shooting on film brings in some important restrictions to going all loose without a thought process.

BSP · Jan 21, 2020

An puzzling/interesting aspect (at least to me) of (too much) cropping is the relationship between field of view and depth of field, also known as perspective.
If the cropped image looks too much different from the fully framed version taken closer of with a longer lens, then maybe the crop is just too much?

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree here?

Bill (BSP)

Pentode · Jan 21, 2020

Witold said:
Cropping has always been part of composing, and never has it been deemed as an adjustment of lacking photographic skills.

For the win.

How many photographers who use square format actually restrict themselves to printing square? Cropping is not cheating; It’s a tool one can use to strengthen a composition.

BSP said:
An puzzling/interesting aspect (at least to me) of (too much) cropping is the relationship between field of view and depth of field, also known as perspective.
If the cropped image looks too much different from the fully framed version taken closer of with a longer lens, then maybe the crop is just too much?

Or am I just barking up the wrong tree here?

Bill

Seems like the right tree to me! Yes, Bill, cropping does, indeed, alter perspective. Something that needs to be considered before a photographer starts cropping indiscriminately, for sure. Still, it’s not a reason not to crop; it’s just a side-effect to be kept in mind.

guangong · Jan 21, 2020

What I understand as “street photography” is quite different from what I would call “street landscape”. Much of street photography with 35mm is analogous to hunting game with a shotgun....the subject i comes into view, gun is brought up, lined up with game and trigger pulled, and gun lowered. All quickly done. Same with subjects actions on the street. My late friend Lou Stettner had the knack to do all this and catch an interesting composition simultaneously. Not me, except for the rare lucky shot.
As for cropping, unlike many paintings and drawings by the masters, who often added picture area to a particular picture, photographers only way of altering picture is to crop. Keep in mind that the square negative of Rollei TLR and Hassy were conceived with likely cropping in mind.

Ces1um · Jan 21, 2020

I don't see why anybody should have any issue with cropping a photo. A photograph is something that YOU make. It's your little creation. You can make it however you want to. There are no "rules" that you have to follow. It's your camera, your time and your photo.

BSP · Jan 21, 2020

guangong said:
Keep in mind that the square negative of Rollei TLR and Hassy were conceived with likely cropping in mind.

...which makes me want to go out an shoot some street with my Mamiya C220/65mm and see how many pictures I can find in each exposed frame.

138S · Jan 21, 2020

This is totally about personal preferences...

Pro commercial work is usually more prone to cropping, specially if we have image quality in excess.

A retired Pro that made his entire career with a pair of Hassie told me his cameras were "not" square format: they were both protrait and landscape rectangular in a single shot. He always shot 6x6 and he always cropped, he not sold a single square image in his entire career!! and he also had been shooting usually a bit open to allow some composition optimization later.

Specially for portraits a photographer may have to concentrate attention in the face expression an angle and glares, not having much time to adjust framing for a nice composition, speaking to suject and analyzing his reaction may not allow to judge the framing, which can anyway be nailed from intuition if one has good skills in that.

Framing by intuition is of great value in cinematography, because aspect is fixed and zomming in post can be painful, they require several people very well coortinated, one moves the crane, another one adjusts focus on the fly, another one frames and the actors have also to speak when they have focus on them (!) ...

Framing by intuition is necessary skill for cine camera operators. In photography we always can crop, but having a well trained "framing by intuition" is always of great value.

Personally, I've been experimenting with that, and I cannot say if it's better shooting a bit open to later crop a bit... or if it's better trying to nail the framing, With the F5 I often try to nail the framing, in MF I shot a bit open more frequently, single thing is that the strategy we use has an impact in the lens we use, to shot open we have to use a wider lens rather than increasing distance, with zooms this is not a concern, but with primes (MF) we may require a different glass.

Personally I fell in love with BW slides (with moving kids), I found that challenging because not only exposure has to be nailed, also framing has to be nailed.

warden · Jan 21, 2020

Just don't follow any rules that tend to make your photographs worse.

An example from Dave Heath, who would sometimes crop 35mm film down to 110 size and then print beautifully:

Cropping and Street Photography

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radiant

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Cropping and Street Photography

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