Do you crop?

[jsrockit]

I guess everyone is trying to get their money's worth from each and every slab of paper and using precut mattes and frames?

I would always print the size I wanted and not let the paper dictate my ratio or size. If I needed a bigger print, I'd buy bigger paper. With regarding to matting, I would just cut my own to the size I needed. Then again, 2:3 is my preferred ratio.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Perhaps, but maybe some people like to get things the way they want them first time, and that's how they enjoy the hobby. Perhaps also they enjoy limitations of not cropping, only using B&W film, only using a certain lens, or some other limit.

I'm not saying I'm that person, but I think when it comes to hobbies, sanity or rational thinking often goes out of the window, we just do what we enjoy. If I don't like to crop, I don't. If I don't like digital, I don't use it. When you have the freedom of a hobby, not a profession, you just do what you like.

Possibly true, but I still can't see what sort of person has such a hang-up that they get upset by the idea of cropping.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I never crop. The cropping has been done in the composition stage. Once the shutter fires, the decision is FINAL.

Once the poem or prose is done, it is DONE. No more editing.

You mean that everything you write is perfect as you write it down? Either you're unbelievably good, or equally unbelievably uncritical.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Clint Troy]

You mean that everything you write is perfect as you write it down? Either you're unbelievably good, or equally unbelievably uncritical.

Cheers,

R.

Composing, you know, happens through a viewfinder. Critical composition even more so.

What I meant is very simple to understand.

In short: if I was as good a writer as a photographer, yes, my poems would be very good once finished.

 

[jsrockit]

Thankfully we live in a world where everyone doesn't have to do things exactly the same way. One person's philosophy is not anothers. Do whatever works for you and your work. Photography is used so many different ways, I can't even see how one method could work for all people.

 

[daveleo]

I never crop. The cropping has been done in the composition stage. Once the shutter fires, the decision is FINAL.

Once the poem or prose is done, it is DONE. No more editing.

IMO, it's never done.
Editing never ends. It certainly does not end at the shutter click - it starts there !

You wake up a year from now and maybe you can make your creation
better, because you are a new person and see things
differently than you did before, or have new skills in your pocket.

Great thing about making pictures - there are lots of ways to do things.

 

[Clint Troy]

IMO, it's never done.
Editing never ends. It certainly does not end at the shutter click - it starts there !

You wake up a year from now and maybe you can make your creation
better, because you are a new person and see things
differently than you did before, or have new skills in your pocket.

Great thing about making pictures - there are lots of ways to do things.

No.
All my prints have the black border. They are optimal.
I simply don't print if the shot is not good enough "but could be better if I cropped it".
That, to me, is a terrible failure.

I can understand the digital shooters that have millioms of files in their computer and only share a few photos on the net. Their images die instantly as soon as they post them. They look at them once and they end up in the black hole of their
Hard drive.
My photography, on the other hand, is taken very seriously. Each and every one of my best shots is printed on 16x20 or 20x24 fb paper. Never cropped. Selenium toned. Washed for 2 hours.
These photographs are all good for the highest standard exhibitions anywhere.
My film and darkroom work is light years on top of digital imagery that has no value except the short thrill it brings once posted in web forums.

Maybe some people write poems with a Caran d'ache on the finest paper and then use correction fluid at will. But me, once I capture the scene with my eyes and finger, it's done. If it's good, it goes to print. If it needs to be cropped and modified and recropped yeaes later, It's simply a failure. A shot that I missed.

 

[Sparrow]

I never crop. The cropping has been done in the composition stage. Once the shutter fires, the decision is FINAL.

Once the poem or prose is done, it is DONE. No more editing.

That is a very courageous decision to take ... I shall look forward to seeing your work in exhibition and print ...

... may I also enquire which viewfinder you use that has that degree of accuracy?

 

[Clint Troy]

That is a very courageous decision to take ... I shall look forward to seeing your work in exhibition and print ...

... may I also enquire which viewfinder you use that has that degree of accuracy?

Xpan, MP, 501cm...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Composing, you know, happens through a viewfinder. Critical composition even more so.

What I meant is very simple to understand.

In short: if I was as good a writer as a photographer, yes, my poems would be very good once finished.

Sorry, I missed the parallel: as a photographer and writer, I thought you were talking about actual poetry and prose.

Even so, the kind of visual composition you are talking about is possible only for some pictures and some purposes. It rules out many grab shots, and shots made to fit full-bleed on (for example) a book cover that is a different format shape from the camera format shape.

Like most people, I try to fill the format. It's a lot easier with view cameras or reflex cameras with 100% finders; for shots where I have plenty of time; and where the composition fits the format of the camera I'm using. But if I need to crop for any reason, I just don't worry about it.

Cheers,

R.

 

[jsrockit]

My photography, on the other hand, is taken very seriously. Each and every one of my best shots is printed on 16x20 or 20x24 fb paper. Never cropped. Selenium toned. Washed for 2 hours. These photographs are all good for the highest standard exhibitions anywhere.

Sounds great... what galleries / museums can I see your work in?

 

[Roger Hicks]

No.
All my prints have the black border. They are optimal.
I simply don't print if the shot is not good enough "but could be better if I cropped it".
That, to me, is a terrible failure.

I can understand the digital shooters that have millioms of files in their computer and only share a few photos on the net. Their images die instantly as soon as they post them. They look at them once and they end up in the black hole of their
Hard drive.
My photography, on the other hand, is taken very seriously. Each and every one of my best shots is printed on 16x20 or 20x24 fb paper. Never cropped. Selenium toned. Washed for 2 hours.
These photographs are all good for the highest standard exhibitions anywhere.
My film and darkroom work is light years on top of digital imagery that has no value except the short thrill it brings once posted in web forums.

Maybe some people write poems with a Caran d'ache on the finest paper and then use correction fluid at will. But me, once I capture the scene with my eyes and finger, it's done. If it's good, it goes to print. If it needs to be cropped and modified and recropped yeaes later, It's simply a failure. A shot that I missed.

Highlight 1: It's possible to take photography seriously without doing what you describe. I think I'm reasonably serious (and have been for 40+ years)

Highlight 2: Not a good example. Visible corrections are normally a sign of incompetence. Competent photographers' corrections will be invisible.

Do you dodge and burn? Or is that taboo too?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Rodchenko]

10x8; 5x4; 4:3 are all the same classic ratio (1x1.25), and it's a pleasing one, but I think it's a bit narrow.

6x7 is just off square (1x1.17), and has a stately elegance to it without being as static as square format.

16:9 (1x1.78) is a useful wide angle

standard 35mm 24x36mm (1x1.5) is a bit neither one thing nor another for me. Some early 135 cameras used 24x32, which I think is better.

So my favourite aspect ratio is 1x1.33 - 24x32mm or 645 formats. This means that I often find myself cropping photos.

I used to be a real puritan, and never crop anything, which meant it was awkward when I got 8x10s done. Then, when I got into digital, I enjoyed some very avant-garde crops, such as I'd done by hand when I created montages years ago.

But now i find that the aspect ratio of my G11 (1x1.33) is just fine. I still tend to crop my scanned 35mm images, but the digital ones are OK. I might crop out a bit of distracting background - I'm not precious about it - but I generally like the way they come out.

So, er, it depends 😉

 

[Sparrow]

10x8; 5x4; 4:3 are all the same classic ratio (1x1.25), and it's a pleasing one, but I think it's a bit narrow.

6x7 is just off square (1x1.17), and has a stately elegance to it without being as static as square format.

16:9 (1x1.78) is a useful wide angle

standard 35mm 24x36mm (1x1.5) is a bit neither one thing nor another for me. Some early 135 cameras used 24x32, which I think is better.

So my favourite aspect ratio is 1x1.33 - 24x32mm or 645 formats. This means that I often find myself cropping photos.

I used to be a real puritan, and never crop anything, which meant it was awkward when I got 8x10s done. Then, when I got into digital, I enjoyed some very avant-garde crops, such as I'd done by hand when I created montages years ago.

But now i find that the aspect ratio of my G11 (1x1.33) is just fine. I still tend to crop my scanned 35mm images, but the digital ones are OK. I might crop out a bit of distracting background - I'm not precious about it - but I generally like the way they come out.

So, er, it depends 😉

... I'm just thankful no one has mentioned Phi and the golden mean ...

 

[Sparrow]

Xpan, MP, 501cm...

Then you are blessed to find an accurate MP ... thankfully I've always taken snapshots, apart from the college stuff that is, but they are always very very serious snapshots you understand.
... and BTW I never, ever alter my developing times, I always get the exposure 200% right in the camera ... so there no need to change it afterwards

 

[thompsonks]

What matters to me is to stick with the 2:3 ratio that 'gave' me the image. IMO every good photographer has moved from seeing subjects to seeing rectangles – in which every element is part of the image. Over time, one comes to see in a chosen aspect ratio.

I do crop, though, because of the sloppy framelines of the M9 finder. M8 was originally sloppy, M8.2 greatly improved this, and M9 regressed. So I crop to take out what the camera included that I didn't intend.

I usually shoot with a 35mm Summicron v4, because it like the way it 'draws.' The 35mm lines way underestimate what the sensor sees. But when I use a 40 Summicron modified to bring up the 35mm framelines, the viewfinder is more accurate.

I admit, though, that sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised by a detail that the loose framelines chose to include without my foreseeing it. And I confess to occasionally cheating by using Perspective Crop to relocate a 2:3 boundary.

Kirk

 

[Godfrey]

Yes. For many reasons. It's always best to crop as little as possible, given that you're working with the desired format and field of view, but there's no need to either follow a "no cropping" or "crop liberally" policy.

The photo and your intended use of it should dictate what you do in rendering.

G

 

[Clint Troy]

Then you are blessed to find an accurate MP ... thankfully I've always taken snapshots, apart from the college stuff that is, but they are always very very serious snapshots you understand.
... and BTW I never, ever alter my developing times, I always get the exposure 200% right in the camera ... so there no need to change it afterwards

Ok, so you love to crop. That's fine. I won't go sarcastic on you. My methods are mine.
And my VF doesn't have to be 100% accurate. I'm not sure why you're making a big deal out of it. My succesful shots are a savant mixture of feelings, specific moment, light, involvement, message and composition.
Who cares if the image is tilted or if a foot is cropped if the other aspects make it a brilliant shot, still?

Have you thought about this?

 

[Sparrow]

Yes. For many reasons. It's always best to crop as little as possible, given that you're working with the desired format and field of view, but there's no need to either follow a "no cropping" or "crop liberally" policy.

The photo and your intended use of it should dictate what you do in rendering.

G

Well ... except one can't crop larger can one? ... so it would be clearly be more sensible to frame a little more loosely to allow for frame-line error and parallax, well that's what I was taught anyway ... but then, I was at art college and my tutors may well have been too interested in the pictures rather than concentrating on the the process

 

[icebear]

OMG, some folks really seem to be caged in by rectangles 😀.

And there will always some puritans around who want to have it only in one specific way.
As long as nobody claims that everyone else has to follow that path too, we can relax 😉.