Some of the most iconic photographs of the century are actually cropped versions

[Roger Hicks]

In my view framing is the most difficult photography skill. And cropping being another form of framing, requires a certain level of skill in framing.

But there is one major difference between framing in real time and cropping. In real-time-framing time is of the essence, while in cropping, there is no time limit. This means a photographer who begins to rely on cropping, might have his work suffer from a lack of spontaneity. And secondly since he crops by what he thinks is a good photograph, he only manages to recycle instead of actually engage in the difficult and creative task of framing in real time.

Cropping should be just another tool for those exceptional cases not as the norm... And of course when people crop they should respect the aspect ratio!

The conditional reveals the asinine nature of this argument.

By definition, "might" is identical to "might not".

And WHY should anyone "respect the aspect ratio"? For many applications, 4x5 inch and 8x10 inch are simply ugly and stubby. Likewise 2:3 (24x36mm, 56x84mm) can be too long and thin. Equally, if I want a panorama, I may compose 45x84mm on so-called 6x9 cm or 50x110mm on so-called 6x12 cm. In fact I'll quite cheerfully compose whatever shape I like, and to hell with the camera's "native" format.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Vics]

I still don't understand why cropping / not cropping was ever a topic of discussion.

Cartier-Bresson made it so.

 

[ferider]

Ansel's moon over half dome was taken with a 250mm sonnar on a 6X6 format Hasselblad. It's cropped, so it's crap?? Really, let artists create art.

If I remember right, Moon over Half Dome was an overlay of two negatives, taken with two different lenses.

Anyways, IMO, if a picture was cropped or not, is as (un)important as knowing what camera an artist used.

Now - if I decide not to crop, that should be completely irrelevant to you, as it's my process, learning experience, etc. Conversely, you all do what you feel like.

My 2 cents,

Roland.

 

[lukitas]

I crop

cheers

 

[paulfish4570]

nothing wrong at all with cropping. the native frame is not holy.

 

[rodinal]

I always read Henri Cartier-Bresson was vehemently opposed to cropping. Not true?

As all sources confirm, HC-B didn't like to do his own darkroom work. A friend of mine did lab work for Cartier-Bresson in Paris (Pictorial Lab). He told me that HC-B was very anal about lab technicians doing cropping decisions or recommendations, so he insisted in having his prints showing the full negative area and, to certify this, he asked for his prints to show the black border that signals the end of the image in the negative.

Perhaps having other people doing the printing of his negatives was relevant to his somewhat fanatic policy of no-crop.

Ansel Adams was on the other end of the spectrum and cared with passion about his darkroom work. Seems to be very meaningful that AA didn't care that much about cropping...

 

[Roger Hicks]

Cartier-Bresson made it so.

Or more accurately, a load of Cartier Bresson worshippers made it so.

Cheers,

R.

 

[OurManInTangier]

.... And of course when people crop they should respect the aspect ratio!

Thank goodness many photographers have so little respect for other people's rules or we'd all be treading water and producing 'classic' pictures.

 

[Hsg]

The conditional reveals the asinine nature of this argument.

By definition, "might" is identical to "might not".

And WHY should anyone "respect the aspect ratio"? For many applications, 4x5 inch and 8x10 inch are simply ugly and stubby. Likewise 2:3 (24x36mm, 56x84mm) can be too long and thin. Equally, if I want a panorama, I may compose 45x84mm on so-called 6x9 cm or 50x110mm on so-called 6x12 cm. In fact I'll quite cheerfully compose whatever shape I like, and to hell with the camera's "native" format.

Cheers,

R.

Fair enough, free crop and forget the aspect ratio.

There is no need for getting so touchy about a subject that other people might not take as seriously as you do.

I have not explored cropping as a creative outlet so my opinions about it are not as solid as they should be... As far as aspect ratio is concerned, don't respect it, but then again if you shot 35mm film, used a Leica M or 35mm SLR, you bought into the 3:2 aspect ratio. So, I guess you should take this aspect ratio argument to the camera makers and ask them why they've forced people into this 3:2 aspect ratio - not to mention why most monitors have 16:9 aspect ratio...

 

[E.M]

I think it was Elliott Erwitt who said this in an interview : ' usually I don't crop , but it is not a religion ' . Perfect sense to me .

 

[rbelyell]

Fair enough, free crop and forget the aspect ratio.

There is no need for getting so touchy about a subject that other people might not take as seriously as you do.

I have not explored cropping as a creative outlet so my opinions about it are not as solid as they should be... As far as aspect ratio is concerned, don't respect it, but then again if you shot 35mm film, used a Leica M or 35mm SLR, you bought into the 3:2 aspect ratio. So, I guess you should take this aspect ratio argument to the camera makers and ask them why they've forced people into this 3:2 aspect ratio - not to mention why most monitors have 16:9 aspect ratio...

does your argument hold water if one owns several cameras each of a different aspect ratio? and if so, is it your position that person must at all times have each such piece of equipment with him, in order that he be able to 'buy into' each possible aspect ratio at any given moment? each and every one of these arguments breaks down. artists edit. every one, every medium. period, end of story. art is subjective--no ones rules apply but the artists. people need to stop forcing other people into their foxhole. none of us signed up to be in there with you. all art are forms of self expression, not your expression.

 

[TXForester]

I don't even think this is a crop from that image ....

As far as I know neither image was taken by Jeff .....

Correct. The tanks are in different positions relative to each other.

And what is the point of the Beatles cover? One being the album and the other was not used for the album. To me it looks like there was limited studio space and the photo that would be chosen for the album, was intended to be cropped. Same with the Dali photo.

 

[photomoof]

Fair enough, free crop and forget the aspect ratio.

There is no need for getting so touchy about a subject that other people might not take as seriously as you do.

I have not explored cropping as a creative outlet so my opinions about it are not as solid as they should be... As far as aspect ratio is concerned, don't respect it, but then again if you shot 35mm film, used a Leica M or 35mm SLR, you bought into the 3:2 aspect ratio. So, I guess you should take this aspect ratio argument to the camera makers and ask them why they've forced people into this 3:2 aspect ratio - not to mention why most monitors have 16:9 aspect ratio...

Seems like the volk on this thread just want to have a bar fight, no one is really interested in why an artist would present images full frame? All this truly bizarre talk of "rules?"

Of course there are no "rules" one can do whatever one one wants. One can cut photos into strips and weave them together.

Everyone seems so sure of what is 'right," maybe they have mounted more shows, than those of us who are still considering the "frame."

 

[daveleo]

Seems like the volk on this thread just want to have a bar fight, no one is really interested in why an artist would present images full frame? All this truly bizarre talk of "rules?"

Of course there are no "rules" one can do whatever one one wants. One can cut photos into strips and weave them together.

Everyone seems so sure of what is 'right," maybe they have mounted more shows, than those of us who are still considering the "frame."

I don't think that cropping / not cropping is the real issue that people argue.
It's the underlying implication "If you crop you are a [bad, lazy, sloppy] photographer" and "If you disdain cropping you are just an HCB copycat".
It's these implications under the surface that people get fussy about.

PS .... I wish Fuji (and others) would add and 8X10 format to there aspect ratio selections.

 

[FrankS]

The act of photographing anything and putting a photograph frame around a select part of reality is already cropping. Refining that crop with a slightly tighter crop while printing is no big deal, IMO.

 

[Hsg]

Seems like the volk on this thread just want to have a bar fight, no one is really interested in why an artist would present images full frame? All this truly bizarre talk of "rules?"

Of course there are no "rules" one can do whatever one one wants. One can cut photos into strips and weave them together.

Everyone seems so sure of what is 'right," maybe they have mounted more shows, than those of us who are still considering the "frame."

As daveleo said above, its not so much the cropping but what cropping implies that annoys some photographers.

I personally find the aspect ratio discussion far more interesting, because its a sort of 'meta-crop' that the industry has imposed on photographers. We crop the world at 3:2 with 35mm cameras and yet we don't think much about it...

 

[Hsg]

does your argument hold water if one owns several cameras each of a different aspect ratio? and if so, is it your position that person must at all times have each such piece of equipment with him, in order that he be able to 'buy into' each possible aspect ratio at any given moment? each and every one of these arguments breaks down. artists edit. every one, every medium. period, end of story. art is subjective--no ones rules apply but the artists. people need to stop forcing other people into their foxhole. none of us signed up to be in there with you. all art are forms of self expression, not your expression.

Its not as simple as that. For instance an overwhelming majority of photographers share images on the web, and their images are viewed in most cases on a 16:9 aspect ratio screen... So, the "artistic" question is, what aspect ratio cropped images look "good" on a 16:9 aspect ratio screen?

 

[FrankS]

When I crop to improve an image, I do so without regard to any of the standard aspect ratios.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Fair enough, free crop and forget the aspect ratio.

There is no need for getting so touchy about a subject that other people might not take as seriously as you do.

I have not explored cropping as a creative outlet so my opinions about it are not as solid as they should be... As far as aspect ratio is concerned, don't respect it, but then again if you shot 35mm film, used a Leica M or 35mm SLR, you bought into the 3:2 aspect ratio. So, I guess you should take this aspect ratio argument to the camera makers and ask them why they've forced people into this 3:2 aspect ratio - not to mention why most monitors have 16:9 aspect ratio...

Surely, the ones who get "touchy" are the anti-crop brigade. The rest of us are quite flexible about it and can't see what the anti-croppers are on about, apart from some quasi-religious obsession.

As for 3:2, the 24x36mm just a double 18x24 cine frame (4:3), adopted by a number of early 35mm cameras because it's a convenient 8-perforation crop. Barnack apparently liked it especially. As soon as slides became common, any other size became impractical: Kodak were not about to provide multiple automatic cutting machines. Other frame sizes on 35mm, close to 24x36, have been 24x32 (Wray, Nikon I, Opema 35) and 24x34mm (Nikon M).

As for monitor sizes, no, this is sheer nonsense: there are (and have been, and will be) lots of shapes other than 16:9. The one in front of me at the moment is 16:10 and my last surviving CRT monitor is 16:12. Even if you are right about "most people" using 16:9, what of it?Should we all make 16:9 prints?

Likewise, standard paper shapes didn't (and don't) match all formats, because they can't. To talk about manufacturers "forcing" people into certain aspect ratios is ridiculous. It's all historical accident. This is why people crop: for convenience, or to suit their artistic vision.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Its not as simple as that. For instance an overwhelming majority of photographers share images on the web, and their images are viewed in most cases on a 16:9 aspect ratio screen... So, the "artistic" question is, what aspect ratio cropped images look "good" on a 16:9 aspect ratio screen?

No it isn't. That's nothing to do with art. It's everything to do with convenience, for those who lack imagination or never make prints or go to exhibitions.

Cheers,

R.