Do You Often Crop Images? Technique?

[Marsopa]

I tend to imagine that I want to do a shot with a 90mm but, unfortunately I only carry the 35mm and 50mm, if I'd the 90mm I'll make the pic and no cropping will be necessary, I coul take the pic with 50mm and afterwards do a crop or I could walk a little to get nearer to the subject and then do the pic... One scene, one view, three ways of cropping (for the one who has a lot of gear, for the not so lazy and one for when there are no gear nor possibility to keep nearer)

(Sorry for the english)

 

[Sparrow]

For me? The value is being there. To know that I was on the rails and working at the best of my ability. The other value for me is that a perfection or harmony (composition some may say) that can exist at one moment. That is magic. 20/20 hindsight is less impressive.

I also find I am not working at a conceptual level but something deeper or more instinctive. Writing has been brought up from time to time. You can bleed the life out of a first draft by forcing formalist notions on it. I find cropping may help a bad photo, but it does not make it great as you are dealing at a conscious level using concepts.

As far as "truth"? What is the truth in a picture of a flower? Could the picture ever be a lie? I would like to say, here is "truth." But in reality, it is just an image of something at a particular time framed and presented by me and my predudices and assumptions. It may not even be that complex. I may just like it. I find little "truth" in my preferences. At best, all I can say, this is "what I saw."

OK but has your “what I saw” got more value because it’s a print of the full frame, that’s the question, that’s what’s implicit in the previous statements

Anyway what happens when you take a sequence of shots from the same place? How do you select which to print? or do you just take the single frame each time to avoid editing later

 

[RayPA]

...

As far as "truth"? What is the truth in a picture of a flower? Could the picture ever be a lie? I would like to say, here is "truth." But in reality, it is just an image of something at a particular time framed and presented by me and my predudices and assumptions. It may not even be that complex. I may just like it. I find little "truth" in my preferences. At best, all I can say, this is "what I saw."

to call it a flower would be a lie. It's the The treachery of Images after all. 😉


🙂

 

[ruben]

BTW, while I think we all agree on the merits of an image that you cannot crop without hurting the aesthetics and message, aren't we forgetting that Cropping is also a technique requiring experience or training, observation and talent ?

Cheers,
Ruben

 

[Finder]

OK but has your “what I saw” got more value because it’s a print of the full frame, that’s the question, that’s what’s implicit in the previous statements

??? I never show anything but full-frame images and so they are one and the same. I shoot using the entire frame so it is what I am seeing. I don't understand how you can separate "what I saw" with how I work?

Anyway what happens when you take a sequence of shots from the same place? How do you select which to print? or do you just take the single frame each time to avoid editing later

Naturally, I take a bunch of shots and select the one I like. There have been moments when it has been a single shot as well - we all get lucky. I hope you are not getting the impression because I am shooting full-frame, every image is worth printing? I use a lot of film. 90% never make it past the contact stage.

 

[Finder]

BTW, while I think we all agree on the merits of an image that you cannot crop without hurting the aesthetics and message, aren't we forgetting that Cropping is also a technique requiring experience or training, observation and talent ?

Cheers,
Ruben

I did not think so? I think Arnold Newman was able to combine his shooting with this technique. He seemed quite formal in his working style, but let room, as it were, to make other interpretations to the image. Early in his career he certainly explored working outside the frame even to the point of giving non-linear borders to images.

 

[Sparrow]

??? I never show anything but full-frame images and so they are one and the same. I shoot using the entire frame so it is what I am seeing. I don't understand how you can separate "what I saw" with how I work?



Naturally, I take a bunch of shots and select the one I like. There have been moments when it has been a single shot as well - we all get lucky. I hope you are not getting the impression because I am shooting full-frame, every image is worth printing? I use a lot of film. 90% never make it past the contact stage.

I’m trying to understand what it is about the full-frame that makes it so important to you, nothing to do with method just what do you value in the print

What’s the difference between selecting between one of two frames and a 50% crop? You discard half the data in each case, no?

 

[Finder]

I’m trying to understand what it is about the full-frame that makes it so important to you, nothing to do with method just what do you value in the print

What’s the difference between selecting between one of two frames and a 50% crop? You discard half the data in each case, no?

Photography is just data aquisition?

I am not sure I am following you, but is this close?

Why not just take a fisheye lens and take an image and then just make the pictures later by cropping out of the image?

It is not the same as shooting full frame. Full frame forces you to use the moment and experience as it happens rather than creating from a memory of the event when you crop. The print is a record of the moment, not a reflection of the moment considered later.

 

[Sparrow]

Photography is just data aquisition?

I am not sure I am following you, but is this close?



It is not the same as shooting full frame. Full frame forces you to use the moment and experience as it happens rather than creating from a memory of the event when you crop. The print is a record of the moment, not a reflection of the moment considered later.

Yes I understand you show only full frame, I know you feel strongly that this is correct for you, it clearly has great value to you, I just wanted you to put a name to that value; I seem unable to ask the question correctly, sorry

 

[Finder]

A name to the value? That is tough. Integrity. Not meaning honest, but whole.

That would be the best I can come up with. It is rather a personal relationship I have with the process so it is hard to articulate.

 

[Dektol Dan]

Okay, I've read it all so so far

Okay, I've read it all so so far

How often do painters crop their paintings?

Why do traditional art schools teaching photography begin their courses with large format cameras?

What does a motion picture photographer have in common with a still photographer?

If capturing the moment is the skill of the photographer, is the photographer who 'gets it right the first time' showing finesse, or just that he is a good skeet shooter?

Why is composing in the frame a 'chore'?

John Lennon says, 'Come together over me'. Does photography share his concept with poetry?

Cropping has been described here as just another slice of a slice. When does the photographer become just a butcher?

I must confess, over the years I have come to hate dark room work. However, I live for taking pictures. My best pictures I call 'Jesus Pictures'..... I look at them FULL FRAME and I say to myself, 'Jesus! I took that!?!'. I was one with the moment, which is the supreme satisfaction of photography. And, I can share that moment again everytime I go back to that imgage captured in time.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

And who really remembers what they actually snapped? These frame lines are certainly more accurate than my powers of recall.

I do.

By reading the responses in this thread I can understand why many people aren't too hung up on frameline accuracy. I am; which is why I demanded that my M8 have its framelines correctly calibrated. Most "who cares!" people don't see the value in this because there is a big Duct Tape philosophy: fix after the fact. I like another philosophy: "a stitch in time saves nine". Which is why I like my composition on the spot, not as an after-thought.

I'm not against cropping at all. But I don't understand the resistance against cropping on-camera.

Some people are proud of not needing Liquid Paper. Some are extremely proud of being a valued Liquid Paper customer. I just use it when there's a need, it's not a vital part of my writing workflow.

 

[DougK]

I try to keep the image the way I framed it in the camera as much as possible; the digital camera I started with didn't have enough resolution to let you do much cropping if you wanted to make high-quality 8x10 prints. I kept the habit when I switched back to film.

EDIT: Reworded slightly for clarity.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I’m trying to understand what it is about the full-frame that makes it so important to you, nothing to do with method just what do you value in the print

What’s the difference between selecting between one of two frames and a 50% crop? You discard half the data in each case, no?

I understand your confusion: you simply don't "see" the way Finder does. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I get the impression that you want justification for his statements being different from yours. If this is yet another case of poor English, then that's that.

If it's not, then my twopence on that is this: as a musician, if I were trained in only reading the Treble clef, I'd go nuts reading music written with an Alto clef. Some people are unable to accommodate their view of "where the notes should go" vs. "what the notes mean" in a different environment. This, of course, doesn't mean there's a "musical deficiency" on their part, but going about and saying that "I don't understand what is it about the Alto clef that is so important to you" when all you can understand is notes written on the Treble clef, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with music written after an Alto clef, just that it accommodates somebody's needs other than yours. Shoehorn-fitting everything to only one point of view is not going to make you understand the other ones.

But it doesn't mean there's anything "wrong" with either of you. One insisting that the other is, well, that's another matter.

If this is not the dilemma here, then, ok, it's a "language thing". 😱

My twopence.

 

[Sparrow]

I understand your confusion: you simply don't "see" the way Finder does. And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I get the impression that you want justification for his statements being different from yours. If this is yet another case of poor English, then that's that.

If it's not, then my twopence on that is this: as a musician, if I were trained in only reading the Treble clef, I'd go nuts reading music written with an Alto clef. Some people are unable to accommodate their view of "where the notes should go" vs. "what the notes mean" in a different environment. This, of course, doesn't mean there's a "musical deficiency" on their part, but going about and saying that "I don't understand what is it about the Alto clef that is so important to you" when all you can understand is notes written on the Treble clef, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with music written after an Alto clef, just that it accommodates somebody's needs other than yours. Shoehorn-fitting everything to only one point of view is not going to make you understand the other ones.

But it doesn't mean there's anything "wrong" with either of you. One insisting that the other is, well, that's another matter.

If this is not the dilemma here, then, ok, it's a "language thing". 😱

My twopence.

Like you I prefer to kill with the point, but if need must then I’ll cut and run without regret, if the metaphor will stretch that far
To reject either method outright smells of dogma to me I was testing for reason

 

[Pherdinand]

I like to use a typewriter when I am writing.
Not a scientific article, of course. But something personal.
I like the way my fingers are chasing my thoughts and the way once something is written, it is there, ist stays there, black on white.
Even more. Once in a while I still roll my hundred-meter-long paper roll into the old typewrier and continue my old poem Kinn a cserepeken ("Out on the tiles", title inspired in my adolescence by led zeppelin). I am at meter 7 only.

I heavily crop many of my images.

But i'm just a snapshooter. And a snapwriter.

 

[Pherdinand]

hi Rob.
I like that shot very much.
On screen right now i prefer the heavily cropped version.
On a print of say half a meter i would prefer it uncropped.
I love it when one goes closer and closer and there are more and more things to discover on the image.

This is the uncropped version of one of my photos:

And this is what I posted here in my gallery:

(...)
Rob