On Sun, 31 Jul 2005 20:06:09 +1000, Pixby
wrote:

Sometime amount the era I began to use 35mm cameras, I developed a
framing habit so as not to lose any precious resolution when the images
were enlarged. I unconsciously do it now and almost never crop an image
unless it's to accommodate "perfect portrait" size - the 2/3rds thing.

I double booked this weekend and had to engage a contract Photographer
for the 'other' shoot. I've just been going through his work ready to
start printing and discovered a lot of his shots need cropping. Nothing
wrong with his photography, just the fact he leaves lots of room in the
image.

How many other people make cropping a normal event when editing? Just
curious.

Maybe this was a question mostly for pros, but anyway, here are my
amateur practices:

I crop routinely in two different sets of situations.

1) When I know that I won't have the time to frame properly, or when
I take a close candid shot without looking into the viewfinder, I go
wider than reasonably needed so not to miss anything, and crop
afterwards. Maybe very few pros would take candid shots this way, but
in my experience a fraction of human subjects - perhaps 10% in total,
going up to say 30% in teenage boys - are only possible to photograph
in anything that even vaguely resembles a normal likeness if they are
not aware that a shot is being taken when it is.

2) When I shoot wildlife, I consistently use cropping, sometimes quite
heavy cropping. Regardless of glass, you never get close enough to
small, shy birds...

Otherwise, I sometimes crop lightly to improve the composition, and
occasionlly crop more heavily to rescue one subject in the image if
this subject comes out very well, and the other one is blinking or has
an otherwise unsuitable facial expression.

But of course I always try to frame as competently as I can within the
existing time constraints.


Jan Böhme
Korrekta personuppgifter är att betrakta som journalistik.
Felaktigheter utgör naturligtvis skönlitteratur.