What's with no cropping?

I prefer not to crop when printing BUT I will when needed...
If I print full frame and you decide you want to cut it to fit some frame or mat I don't have a problem with that either...
With 35mm film I like and do print most if not all negs to full frame...That's how I saw it and that's how I want to see it...so there...
 
Boy, this one runs and runs.

I'm surprised that nobody has come up with "if you have to crop, you're not close enough"

Now, who said that? Roger - over to you?
 
I try to frame my shots full frame or maybe I should say try to fill the frame. I usually take a shot and then move in a little closer and shoot a second frame. For some reason my second shot is almost always better and sometimes requires little or no cropping. It does depend a lot on the kinds of subjects that you shoot. I often shoot things that are very graphic and depend on a very precise frame line which often requires at least a slight crop. Jim
 
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Good lord...if you need to crop, crop! It just may make your photo better.🙂

If you want a full frame printed to print, good luck in finding a frame or hope the gift doesn't piss off the recipient because they can't find a frame when all they wanted was an 8x10 or even a 5x7.

Look at it this way, photography is an exclusionary art.... isn't that what cropping does?

Don't get hung up on the "purist" point of view.😛 It is your photo, do as you please.
 
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Assuming that you've got the right lens for the shot and the right format for what you are shooting, not cropping will help train your composition skills. BUT, as is often the case, you don't have a long enough lens, or can't get distractions out of the frame by moving or are shooting square format when a rectangular print would be better (or vice versa), you gotta crop. It's not the moral failing that some would have you believe.🙂
 
john neal said:
I'm surprised that nobody has come up with "if you have to crop, you're not close enough"
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Like many debates/ discussions here, everyone speaks from their own experience. I see both sides easily. In reference to the above quote, I agree with it - at times. I was shooting an old farm structure yesterday; there was no excuse for not filling the frame. I had time and easy access.

There are times however when that is not possible. Sports come to mind. I can't step out on the court or field to fill my frame the way I would like. Sometimes I have to crop the image.

There are also some images that we just make because you shoot as best you can or miss a shot. Sometimes in post, you decide that thoughtful cropping improves the image.

Given a choice, I think it is always wise to use as much negative/ sensor area as possible. I do not see any justification for claiming any arbitrary moral high ground in choosing one position over another (not that anyone has).

It's about making the best image we can as we see it.
 
I would also add that my glasses mess with me. Sometimes I THINK I have the frame filled, only to find later that I shot a little loose.
 
JSU said:
As already mentioned, cropping is a fact of life amongst photojournalists.

The image with which Bob Jackson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1964 (Lee Harvey Oswald being shot by Jack Ruby in the basement of the Dallas Police Dept) is actually a crop including less than half of the original negative.
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I actually have no problem with photojournalists cropping. The very act of deciding how to frame and when to push the shutter release are editorial actions just as much as selecting and/or cropping the image that is ultimately presented.

One can imagine a situation in which a dishonest photojournalist could edit a picture in a way that puts a dishonest spin on an event - but that's why photojournalists (and I hope their editors) have codes of ethics. I don't think the act of not cropping a photo makes it any less a manipulated presentation than the act of deciding what picture to take in the first place.

...but this is a discussion for another thread, I suppose...
 
while I'm not opposed to cropping, I try not to beyond straightening and occasions where I can't get closer, I'm disappointed in myself if I ever have to crop chunks from an image.

What I do hate to see is a sequence of images from one project where every image has a crop ratio all it's own, I think if you do crop it should be to a recognised ratio and not to mix too much within one project.
 
If you don't file down your negative carriers for your enlarger, or use slide mounts, or don't scan entire film strips, or don't read the data off of the sensor in your camera with software that does not throw away the guard pixels, you are cropping.

Sometimes I do not crop my images. Filing down the negative carrier took more time than writing software to preserve the guard pixels.
 
I rarely crop my pictures because very often I like my framings.
When my framings are good I feel fine. It's a kind of self-balance.
But if I made a mistake when framing sometimes I try to crop it, in case it could bonify the picture.
For me a good framing is a part of the shooting, as focusing, light metering, etc…
Framing is a choice, a speach, and may be an editing choice, but I feel it more elegant and smart when it's done straight when shooting.
 
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The "no croppers" are the ascetics of the photography world. They take cold showers every morning, and whip themselves with birch bark twigs while standing naked in tubs of ice. They wear smocks of rough grey sack cloth, deny themselves sex (apart from the whipping of course) and eat only cold porridge washed down with spring water.

Many of them are ex Jesuit priests and members of magnus opei.

Ascetic: "a person who dedicates his or her life to a pursuit of contemplative ideals and practices extreme self-denial or self-mortification for religious reasons."

Seriously I could not envisage me not fiddling with my images. I will usually straighten them if needed - In my own work at least, I have distain for out of horizontal horizontals (or unvertical verticals) unless they is called for pictorially. (Smacks of sloppy technique) And then I crop to focus the viewers' attention where it needs to be.

Then again I think of photography as an art. Many here think its only legitimate use is as a tool for "reportage" or as a means of emulating Henri Cartier Bresson.🙂
 
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Some people just prefer to work that way, just like some prefer to work with film, or digital, or paint, or video. There is nothing wrong with making a personal choice, as long as it is not projected onto others as "This is the only way to work."

End of the tempest. Nothing more to see here. IMO.
 
When the image works full frame, I'm happy. If it needs a crop to improve, then I'll do that too. Sometimes I print to include the frame edges and film sprockets. In the picture shown, a street shot, I like the rawness of including the film sprokets.

Here is a full frame (35mm) printed in 11x14inch paper that I printed a couple of hours ago.
 

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