Do you crop your photos?

[faberryman]

There is a school of "thought" - often exibited by art professors and their hangers on - that you must frame perfectly and print to the edge of that said frame. It no doubt was originally intended to help students develop a disciplined approach to composition and image layout, but it's sometimes taken with a literal zeal that isn't warranted ... to the point of becoming a artsy affectation.

I've even seen people printing to show the unexposed edges of a frame for as an artistic decision. I mean, nothing says I'm an artist like seeing "Kodak Tri-X'" on the edge of a sprocket hole on the final print...

Who decided that showing the film rebate was an artsy affectation? Was it the young turks who were rebelling against the old fogey professors? Is it just old-fashioned? Were they rebelling against the Hyperrealists, wanting to show that their photographs were the real art, and that the Hyperrealists were just pretenders? And why is it an artsy affectation? Were the students that did it not the cool kids in class? Can you avoid it being an artsy affectation if you are not zealous about it? Say, every once in a while you do a portfolio on some subject or another, and print with the rebate showing? You know, just do it and quietly go about your business. If someone else wants to make a big deal out of it, that's their problem. Is it a worse affectation than using expired film, for example?

Which again brings us back around to contact prints. Are they an artsy affectation?

Oh, if it "no doubt was originally intended to help students develop a disciplined approach to composition and image layout", why didn't the old fogey professors just teach their students how to use an easel with adjustable blades? What good is a disciplined approach going to do you when you get out of art school and start cropping?

Who has more rules, the croppers or the no croppers?

 

[cliveh]

I have nothing against people who crop and occasionally have done it myself, but if you believe in simplicity of expression, then framing in the camera is a sound discipline to try and master. Cropping is a bit like digital photographers that take a shot they are not sure of, and then say they will sort it out in photoshop. The more you can do to perfect upfront, the less you need to do down the line. Also, framing in the camera is preserving the integrity of the image at the moment of capture, within the aspect ratio of your personal vision. Does that make sense, or am I talking bollocks?

 

[Pieter12]

Most of the time, I take a photograph because the scene appeals to me in some way. Subject, texures. lighting, context...so many reasons. Sometimes I am waiting for a key or even secondary element to move into where I want it in the frame. When I look through the viewfinder, I will isolate or exclude to record what drew me to the scene. If it is intended to be part of a series, I will have in mind what the rest of the images look like. Unless I am in the studio, all that happens in a short period of time. People move, cars come and go, light changes, clouds change shape. Also, I like the square format, but not all my cameras are square format. So I will often shoot intending to crop off parts of the side of the images. Once an image is processed, I have the luxury of being able to linger over it longer and determine if it needs any fine tuning or if there is some distraction inadvertently included in the frame. Cropping, dodging and burning are post-exposure tools that I am quite willing to take advantage of to improve the final print. Shooting in black and white, what ends up printed is not what I saw in the viewfinder anyway. I usually end up cropping anyway because including the rebate is limiting. I have occasionally, but rarely, severely cropped an image because the scene was only there for an instant and I could not move to eliminate distractions from what drew me to it. But I took the photo anyway.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Cropping won't help the composition if you stood in the wrong spot.

 

[cliveh]

Most of the time, I take a photograph because the scene appeals to me in some way. Subject, texures. lighting, context...so many reasons. Sometimes I am waiting for a key or even secondary element to move into where I want it in the frame. When I look through the viewfinder, I will isolate or exclude to record what drew me to the scene. If it is intended to be part of a series, I will have in mind what the rest of the images look like. Unless I am in the studio, all that happens in a short period of time. People move, cars come and go, light changes, clouds change shape. Also, I like the square format, but not all my cameras are square format. So I will often shoot intending to crop off parts of the side of the images. Once an image is processed, I have the luxury of being able to linger over it longer and determine if it needs any fine tuning or if there is some distraction inadvertently included in the frame. Cropping, dodging and burning are post-exposure tools that I am quite willing to take advantage of to improve the final print. Shooting in black and white, what ends up printed is not what I saw in the viewfinder anyway. I usually end up cropping anyway because including the rebate is limiting. I have occasionally, but rarely, severely cropped an image because the scene was only there for an instant and I could not move to eliminate distractions from what drew me to it. But I took the photo anyway.

View attachment 343233

Actually, I prefer the original. The cropped version is trying to say you were not where you were.

 

[Ian David]

Does that make sense, or am I talking bollocks?

Some sense, some bollocks.

 

[Pieter12]

Cropping won't help the composition if you stood in the wrong spot.

Sure it can. And sometimes you can’t get to the right spot in time to get the right moment.

Actually, I prefer the original. The cropped version is trying to say you were not where you were.

The primary subject is minimized in the original, there is a distracting third person off to the left and a bit of food container trash in the foreground, all taking away from the intended objective. And I was where I was, but would have preferred to be a dozen or so feet closer.

 

[Pieter12]

Igor Stravinsky by Arnold Newman.

 

[faberryman]

Some of us are film photographers and do not have use for 4:3 or 16:9 or 1:1 except when mixing chemicals.

No 1:1? Sure, no 4:3 and 16:9. Those are just TV aspect ratios, old and new, but no 1:1? Are you going to abandon your A12 backs for A16s?

 

[warden]

Igor Stravinsky by Arnold Newman.
View attachment 343250

A classic example.

Don’t crop. Unless you want or need to. Then crop and get the goddamned shot. Seems simple enough to me. Newman was so good.

 

[Mike Lopez]

No 1:1? Sure, no 4:3 and 16:9. Those are just TV aspect ratios, old and new, but no 1:1? Are you going to abandon your A12 backs for A16s?

4:3 would also match the aspect ratio of 645—which, wouldn’t you know it, is kind of a film format.

 

[faberryman]

4:3 would also match the aspect ratio of 645—which, wouldn’t you know it, is kind of a film format.

You are absolutely right. It’s an old cinematic aspect ratio.

 

[Sirius Glass]

... Are you going to abandon your A12 backs for A16s?

Yes, on the twelfth of Never.

 

[MattKing]

4:3 would also match the aspect ratio of 645—which, wouldn’t you know it, is kind of a film format.

The same applies to 110, which is essentially the same as 4/3 or micro 4/3 - just to show that what comes around, goes around.
Whether you:
1) frame and then crop,
2) frame and then don't crop, or
3) frame leaving available the option of cropping,
just be sure to do so with purpose and intention, and ignore anyone who tells you that what suits you is somehow wrong for you.
FWIW, I've spent a fair amount of my photographic life using cameras whose aspect ratios didn't match the known or expected aspect ratios of the final presentation. It wasn't a sin, and its never made me feel unworthy.

 

[macfred]

...
1) frame and then crop,
2) frame and then don't crop, or
3) frame leaving available the option of cropping,
just be sure to do so with purpose and intention, and ignore anyone who tells you that what suits you is somehow wrong for you.
FWIW, I've spent a fair amount of my photographic life using cameras whose aspect ratios didn't match the known or expected aspect ratios of the final presentation. It wasn't a sin, and its never made me feel unworthy.

Amen !

 

[VinceInMT]

….It wasn't a sin, and its never made me feel unworthy.

Ah, but one of the features of the Internet is that no matter what you are doing or how you are doing it, someone will be sure to tell that you are doing it wrong. This thread is an example and reminds me of this piece in the Atlantic:

Everything: You’re Doing It Wrong

 

[faberryman]

...just be sure to do so with purpose and intention...

Excellent.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Sure it can. And sometimes you can’t get to the right spot in time to get the right moment.

...

Of course, many times cropping will help. But there are certain cases where it just won't work. If you stood in a spot where a telephone pole is going through the subject's head, cropping later won't help you. Only moving at the time you shoot the picture so the objects don't line up would compose it correctly. If the angle of the shot is off, cropping won't help. If a photographer is going to depend on cropping later and not take the time to compose the shot when shooting, his best shots may be lost.

All cropping does is select a portion of a flat picture already captured. It cannot line up the objects in the picture.

 

[faberryman]

View attachment 343233

I prefer the uncropped version, and not because it is uncropped. In the cropped version, you can see that the woman is taking a photo of her friends with her phone, which renders it rather prosaic. Unless your intention was that the photograph be prosaic. The uncropped version on the other hand, print it big. I mean look at that sky.

Just so you know, if I see another photograph of someone faffing about with his/her phone, I'll scream. Actually, I've been screaming for years.

And now, back to your regular programming.

 

[snusmumriken]

Igor Stravinsky by Arnold Newman.
View attachment 343250

Yes, that one has been in my mind too throughout this discussion. And there are innumerable other examples from the likes of Norman Parkinson, Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, etc.

 

[faberryman]

Igor Stravinsky by Arnold Newman.
View attachment 343250

I prefer the cropped version of Stravinsky, though not necessarily this cropped version now that I see the options. I would want to take a look at including the third triangle comprised of his right arm and hand. The white/grey of his right cuff/hand mirror the white/grey of the background. But perhaps it would be too busy.

 

[snusmumriken]

I prefer the cropped version of Stravinski, though not necessarily this cropped version now that I see the options. I would want to take a look at including the third triangle comprised of his right arm and hand. The white/grey of his right cuff/hand mirror the white/grey of the background.

It always makes me think he might just as well have been shooting 35mm.

 

[koraks]

I prefer the cropped version of Stravinski, though not necessarily this cropped version now that I see the options. I would want to take a look at including the third triangle comprised of his right arm and hand. The white/grey of his right cuff/hand mirror the white/grey of the background.

Might work, but I think you'll have to ditch the curved right end side of the grand piano. Give it a try. I'm sure Igor wouldn't mind.

 

[faberryman]

I'm sure Igor wouldn't mind.

It's Arnold Newman I would be worried about.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Of course, many times cropping will help. But there are certain cases where it just won't work. If you stood in a spot where a telephone pole is going through the subject's head, cropping later won't help you. Only moving at the time you shoot the picture so the objects don't line up would compose it correctly. If the angle of the shot is off, cropping won't help. If a photographer is going to depend on cropping later and not take the time to compose the shot when shooting, his best shots may be lost.

All cropping does is select a portion of a flat picture already captured. It cannot line up the objects in the picture.

When I first got my Brownie Hawkeye camera I took a photograph of my brother about to leave on a bus to Philmont NM scout camp. He had a western hat on, backpack under one arm and a traffic pole sticking up behind his head with a "Walk" sign sticking out of one ear and and "Don't Walk" sign sticking out the other ear. I could not have done it better if I had tried. That is when I learned to check the background before taking the photograph.