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Do you crop your photos?

Meaning the amount of cropping or what cropping can accomplish?

Both. If you over crop, you can lose too much resolution and get too much grain. Also, cropping can't correct the angle of the shot and the placements of the elements that make up the picture.
 
Both. If you over crop, you can lose too much resolution and get too much grain. Also, cropping can't correct the angle of the shot and the placements of the elements that make up the picture.
And if you shoot a large enough format, cropping can give you several pictures from the same negative.
 
And if you shoot a large enough format, cropping can give you several pictures from the same negative.

One crop angle is usually the best.
 
For the record, I do admire his cropping decision for this photo. I was taken by my parents to see Stravinsky conduct Firebird in London in 1965. He was in his 80s, I think. I was only 10, but it remains an indelible memory. You too can watch it online here.
 
For me, the picture works. But I guess I'll burn in hell for the sin of such wanton and egregious cropping.

I believe that there is a significant body of musical creativity based on the premise that "sinners have more fun".
 
I believe that there is a significant body of musical creativity based on the premise that "sinners have more fun".

As long as you keep your cropping to your photos. Doing that to a dog’s ears is inhumane and, in some quarters, illegal.
 

I have a lifelong passion for classical music from Gregorian Chant to Gershwin (who is only arguably a classical composer) but - for whatever reason - I don't much care for Stravinsky's work, and never did. But there's pretty much no question that his work stands as fine art.

It's a reminder that what makes great art has nothing to do with what I like or public taste generally.
 
Thought I'd mention one contemporary photographer - Kit Young - who excels in finding what he wants by enlarging small parts of his negatives. High contrast, lots of gritty grain. I admire his ability to see what he wants in an unpromising negative, and his darkroom skill, but can't decide whether I like the results or not.

https://www.kityoung.co.uk/about
https://www.instagram.com/kityoung135/
 
As long as you keep your cropping to your photos. Doing that to a dog’s ears is inhumane and, in some quarters, illegal.

They docked (not cropped) our mini-poodles tail before we got him. I wonder how people feel about docking photos?
 
They docked (not cropped) our mini-poodles tail before we got him. I wonder how people feel about docking photos?

On dogs that’s as inhumane as ear cropping but I think that in photography it would refer to cutting up the print. Cropping, photographically, could be done when making the print or after. I guess I do a bit of docking when I cut up developed sheet film and reassembled it to make a collage for a cyanotype. No animals were injured in the process (if one overlooks the source of gelatin in the emulsion.)
 

We refused to neuter him which would have been worse. I wonder if you could neuter a photo?
 
If you are of the Bresson school, you seldom need to crop.
 
If you are of the Bresson school, you seldom need to crop.

The dose makes the poison. Extreme cropping to rescue a bad composition often won't work well. Cropping with aesthetic intention is a different matter. So cropping is neither good nor bad, its value is determined contextually.
 
Cropping photos is like cropping hair.

Go ahead. I dare you to make sense of that.
 
The dose makes the poison. Extreme cropping to rescue a bad composition often won't work well. Cropping with aesthetic intention is a different matter. So cropping is neither good nor bad, its value is determined contextually.

Kertesz did quite a bit (lookie them hands of pianist P. Arma portrait in the same article):


Over three years he made ”new compositions and techniques and printed most of his work in the intimate carte postale format.”

Postcard Exchange, anyone?
 
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Cropping photos is like cropping hair.
So, it would best be done when there's a full moon.
Thanks for sharing! Photrio postcard exchanges are pretty awesome, so I like to think he would have joined in
 
Over three years he made ”new compositions and techniques and printed most of his work in the intimate carte postale format.”
What a great example of taking an average photo (imho) and making it great by the use of creative cropping.