Image cropping, Yes or No?

Ian Grant · Jan 2, 2014

Soeren said:
Making the most of your format can never be a silly and artificial constraint. Moving up format to allow for cropping seem to be a heavy and expensive way of doing photography
Finetuning is ok if unavoidable but the making of a strong composition before exposure is what makes you do your best. Has "I can fix that later in....." mentality infected the analoque world. I like to try and visualize the final image when I look in the finder or at the groundglass and if I fail I mostly also fail in resurecting the image through cropping but again thats just me, YMV
Best regards

Working to the full format without cropping becomes instinctive, it's rarely a constrain, so I agree with you.

Ian

fotch · Jan 2, 2014

Its similar to music and the way its played. Some musicians will follow the score, others will improvise, play by ear, etc. Both methods work & will get good results, depending on the musician. You may choose different methods to fit the circumstances & not necessarily do it only one way, all the time. YMMV

BrianShaw · Jan 2, 2014

Soeren said:
... I used to shoot slides for projection exclusively and that tought me to frame, compose, include and exclude in the finder. Somehow I also find it makes me apreciate the different formats more but thats propably just me, YMMV....

This brings back memories. I cut my teeth in photogrpahy developing slide-tape training programs. Remember them... with the "beep" indicating that it is time to change slides? I alwyas found it easier to accomodate the slide mount crop by NOT having a 100% viewfinder. But guess what; we ALWAYS had 100% viewfinders so we seemed to spend a lot of time sctuitinizing the edges of the frame. When in-camera cropping let us down and re-shoot was not possible (which was often) we also utilized slide mounts with alternative openings. As Roger mentioned, there were many offered in many different shapes. We also did a bit of minor edge cropping with a foil tape. Few people seemed to notice or care that some of the frames were not full sized. Those days could be painful and frustrating.

Soeren · Jan 2, 2014

fotch said:
Its similar to music and the way its played. Some musicians will follow the score, others will improvise, play by ear, etc. Both methods work & will get good results, depending on the musician. You may choose different methods to fit the circumstances & not necessarily do it only one way, all the time. YMMV

Hmm I don't find that analogy quite appropiate(need a better word). to me if consequently cropping images e.g. from one aspec ratio to another its like trying to make the Bratch sound like the Violin. To me the improvisation and play by ear is the compositon within the frame. You may be bending or breaking the regular "rules" of composition but you work within the limits of your instrument. Consequent cropping is like tryiong to turn your instrument into another.
Best regards

snapguy · Jan 2, 2014

There was a time when it was considered a terrible sin to crop a negative. People would make photo prints that included parts of the film beyond the image (say, the sprocket holes) to prove their hearts were pure, and that they did not crop. I always considered this a bunch of hooey. In the normal course of events there are many times when the perfect no-crop image is jut not what is in front of your lens. I try to crop s little possible but don't think I will burn in hades because I do.

erikg · Jan 2, 2014

As always on apug, the straw men get set up and the straw men fall.

Alan Klein · Jan 2, 2014

I compose in the camera because of all the slide film I use to shoot. But I think the more important issue is not so much cropping but angle and direction of the shot. It's one thing if you were too wide and picked up things on the edges that you crop out later. Where the issue is more imporant if by not formatting in the cqmera, you wind up with branches going into people's heads. Or the balance isn't quite right. Cropping won't help then. You have to move the camera to compose the content properly in the frame. That's why it's a good habit to compose in the camera.

smithdoor · Jan 2, 2014

I croup almost all photos film/digital. I find use a little wide angle shop is better than missing part of the photo. This why I use darkroom/photoshop. I first start using cropping with slide projector and wall with thumb tacks back 1964

Dave

cliveh said:
Do you try to compose in the viewfinder and not crop in the darkroom? I try to, but dont hold it as a sacrosanct if I feel the image can be improved by cropping at the printing stage.

Bill Burk · Jan 3, 2014

jnanian said:
i am guessing even the people who claim full frame or death
and got famous for their full frames, wished they weren't such
zealots and could crop ..

Except for the fame part, yes I wish it didn't get me so riled up. I don't know why it is such a hot button topic for me.

It might have started in the early days printing from 35mm where I was forced to make a 20% crop decision on every print. If I wanted to crop every print, then I'd enjoy the opportunity to improve each shot - but I hated having an external arbitrary factor (the border of the easel or aspect ratio of the paper) - tell me what I could or could not show. And I was finding many negatives where what I saw in the camera is what I wanted to put on the paper.

So I solved the problem for myself by making wide, uneven borders. This evolved to black borders.

Doremus Scudder · Jan 3, 2014

I decide on my aspect ratio and print borders before I set up the camera. The subject I am working with determines the shape of the final print and its own framing. Only rarely do those coincide with 4x5-inch film and the lens selection I have.

For me, the world doesn't come in little 4x5-inch packages (or squares or any other aspect ratio for that matter). That means that I crop to get the print I visualized most of the time.

I don't use cropping as a matter of course to improve a bad composition. I will, however, sometimes defer my final decision on where to place a particular border till I get into the darkroom; it is often less hectic to do so when dealing with cold, wind, moving subjects, changing light, etc. in the field. I'll leave a little breathing room around the image and refine it later if I can.

Were I shooting slides or transparencies where there were no cropping possibilities in post-production, I would try to make the best composition I could within the limits of the medium. I shoot negative film and print in the darkroom, so the possibilities for image shape are practically limitless. I see no reason not to use them. I have yet, however, to make a print with curved borders.... I have made a round one or two though.

Best,

Doremus

Alan Klein · Jan 3, 2014

Doremus: You have a wonderful portfolio-I particularly admire Zabriskie Point. I notice most of your prints are 11x14" mounted in 16x20" frames. How did you decide on these measurements? Do you equalize the space on opposite borders?

mdarnton · Jan 3, 2014

The thread that wouldn't die. . . .

How I solved this issue for myself is by looking at the work of people whose work I like, and doing what they did. For me, that resulted in an undeniable conclusion about the results of the two systems as it related to me. Any time this question comes up, and it comes up quite often in different places, I look at the work of those who post, and I still come to the same conclusion I did originally, so that's the way I work.

Bill Burk · Jan 3, 2014

mdarnton said:
The thread that wouldn't die. . . .

How I solved this issue for myself is by looking at the work of people whose work I like, and doing what they did. For me, that resulted in an undeniable conclusion about the results of the two systems as it related to me. Any time this question comes up, and it comes up quite often in different places, I look at the work of those who post, and I still come to the same conclusion I did originally, so that's the way I work.

So you found a personal solution from users here? That's great.

There are times when I try something new based on encouragement here or experimentation that's outside my usual standard. Land of the Dinosaurs and Eclipse for example I stray from standards. Eclipse I also stray from my standard "No Cropping" guidelines because the image demanded special treatment. I don't resent that it's different.

I wish I could be like Doremus Scudder, free of the baggage that blocks me into a black rectangle... But I don't want to do what Diane Arbus did when she got fed up with black borders. Although the look of her later soft edges is beautiful, I don't want to copy just to follow her.

NB23 · Jan 3, 2014

Im super strict. Its all in thd vf. Why do i even bother composing if im to crop later?

Im strict. Im a snob. Im a purist. I never crop.

Hcb? I dont know more then 6 of his pictures. Fanboys or the contrariams slways have to mention him. I dont know his work. But if he' like me, never cropped, then I guess he was as smart and as comon sensed as I am.

Croping is bad practice.

Ektagraphic · Jan 3, 2014

I typically try to crop only if my intention was to be able to take an image that the equipment in my hand would not allow me to take...that is if I can remember. In general, when I revisit negs that I didn't just shoot, I am not big on cropping.

cliveh · Jan 3, 2014

NB23 said:
Im super strict. Its all in thd vf. Why do i even bother composing if im to crop later?

Im strict. Im a snob. Im a purist. I never crop.

Hcb? I dont know more then 6 of his pictures. Fanboys or the contrariams slways have to mention him. I dont know his work. But if he' like me, never cropped, then I guess he was as smart and as comon sensed as I am.

Croping is bad practice.

Nice one, and I would like to see some of your images.

cliveh · Jan 3, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Framing is cropping, people. And if you've ever changed focal lengths without changing where you stand, you've cropped. To the guy saying cropping is bad practice, wow.

I would suggest that framing in the camera is more than cropping, as in framing you are often selecting the moment in time and not just the boundaries of the scene.

erikg · Jan 3, 2014

Timing is framing? I don't know. Intertwined certainly. I do feel that time is an element that is so central to photography that it is the thing that makes photography different from other pictographic mediums.
I'm rather shocked that someone here seems proud to be ignorant of the work of HCB. Yikes.

VaryaV · Jan 3, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Framing is cropping, people.

I do have to agree with you to a point. However... I really think it's a personal style.

Most of the work I do is macro and the images and little sets I build rely solely on tight cropping. It's how I tell a story. Positioning the image in the viewfinder can be painstaking work for me. Agonizing, at times because the subject is so small, and I have to be extremely critical about what I see in the frame and getting it right the first time because of the story. It's all about the story. Composing for the micro images is even worse, thankfully, that project is based on abstract shapes so I have a little more leeway. I have to move the dish around and around under super hot illuminators just 'trying' to find a good comp and with that it can be either or miss. Aligning a good frame takes a lot of time and it literally kills my neck!

add, The mood of the scene and story can change dramatically if I don't get the cropping right. The DoF is also very shallow that I work with and I don't have extra room to tinker for cropping later. To me, composition (or cropping as you will call it) is everything. Priority #1. I do have to crop sometimes but when I do it's never much because the subject is already pretty tight .

I can see street photographers needing to crop maybe more then others as other stuff can get in the shot they might not have been aware of assuming they don't have as much time to compose as others might. Interesting thread, OP.

I should note that I have almost total control over what I shoot in the studio and I can compose as long as I want. I am thinking about Weegee on the street shooting up over his head getting the best he could to get the body in the shot ... he had to crop.

cliveh · Jan 3, 2014

VaryaV said:
Aligning a good frame takes a lot of time and it literally kills my neck!

Have you thought about arranging the height and position of these macro shots that doesn't kill your neck. Studio positioning and forethought can be very advantageous.

VaryaV · Jan 3, 2014

cliveh said:
Have you thought about arranging the height and position of these macro shots that doesn't kill your neck. Studio positioning and forethought can be very advantageous.

You don't believe an artist should 'suffer' for her work?

cliveh · Jan 3, 2014

VaryaV said:
You don't believe an artist should 'suffer' for her work?

No, find the most relaxing way to photograph your images and that will aid a more creative process.

VaryaV · Jan 3, 2014

When I'm working, if my studio walls aren't dripping with angst I know I'm not in the groove.

Modus Operandi: The Sufferings of Young Werther - Goethe

cliveh · Jan 3, 2014

VaryaV said:
When I'm working, if my studio walls aren't dripping with angst I know I'm not in the groove.

Modus Operandi: The Sufferings of Young Werther - Goethe

No, we are poles apart here, pure Zen photography requires complete relaxation.

NB23 · Jan 3, 2014

Michael R 1974 said:
Framing is cropping, people. And if you've ever changed focal lengths without changing where you stand, you've cropped. To the guy saying cropping is bad practice, wow.

Michael, well... should I use a 6mm fisheye, then? Looking is cropping, then?

I practice my photography without cropping in the darkroom or in photoshop. I'm not sure why I should debate over that.

Image cropping, Yes or No?

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