Cropping 6x6

[CMur12]

Ned, I don't know what format you shoot, but am I correct in the impression that you would print 135 at 8" x 12" or equivalent and never 8" x 10" because of the cropping involved?

- Murray

 

[Gumby]

Roger, let's twaddle a little more: editors crop to death. They rape photographs in order to satisfy a space, a lie, a story. So?

If I was the photographer of this image and if I was having an exhibition, I'd want the whole image printed.
The editors have their own agendas

Is cropping in camera any less of a "rape of reality" than cropping a neg?

 

[hepcat]

I stay by what I said: altering the image afterwards is alterimg the story.

I presume that is the story that you altered when you cropped it in-camera to begin with?

I'm sorry Ned, your logic on this is tenuous. Everything about a photograph is made to be the way the photographer wants his audience to see it. You're suggesting that careful framing is somehow more acceptable than cropping while printing? Whether it's cropped while shooting (framed) to fit a particular format or cropped later is all part of that process. Those actions are indistinguishable in the final product.

 

[shortstop]

I like square format and never crop. 75 mm planar of my rolleiflex is a bit wide angle and, if I'd crop a part of the image would be lost.

 

[tunalegs]

Also, what makes a good photographer?

Apparently not cropping an image is the most important detail of good photography!

I've met a few people who think cropping is inherently bad. But they are also people who have no real appreciation for art or photography process.

Anybody who knows anything about making art knows that the final piece should reflect the artist's intentions. If the artist intended to crop the image, and so the final image is cropped - that's not sloppy or bad. That's precision, that's the artist's vision executed as they wanted it.

I prefer full frame printing and never crop. But I realize this is just how I want to see my pictures, there is no inherent "goodness" in full frame printing. Just a reflection of one line of thought about how to do things. That is all.

 

[ChrisLivsey]

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=101465&d=1423783023

The real question os: who owns the image?

I this case it is AP photographer Itsuo Inouye.
The picture is actually of an American soldier in Iraq in 2003. It was never run on CNN or Al Jazeera AFAIK as reproduced here but ran with the caption ‘US soldiers from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit give an Iraqi soldier water from a canteen’.
It was later cropped for a discussion on how cropping could affect the "meaning" even later the logos were added so what you have posted, without explanation, is a good example of how we are manipulated generally and how provenance is important.
Whilst film may be less subject to manipulation, until scanned into a digital form, it is the digital realm, especially in what purports to be photojournalism we should be concerned.
This year the World Press Photo "event" required original camera files (following massive arguments over last year's winner) They: “found anomalies in a large number of files and presented their findings to the jury“ resulting in 20% of the images that reached the penultimate round being eliminated “because of removing small details to ‘clean up’ an image, or sometimes by excessive toning that constitutes a material change to the image.”
This despite clear rules on how much manipulation was allowed.

 

[David Hughes]

Sometimes I take the scissors to a 6 x 6 and cut the slide down to fit a 127 slide (that's 2" square) but I've not used 120 slide film for decades and it was a long time ago...

Regards, David