One of those limitations being that the camera format doesn't suit the picture. Have you ever used a square-format camera? Did you feel obliged to compose only square pictures? Have you never shot a photograph where you deliberately composed the picture to be longer and thinner than the format of the camera in your hands? Or shorter and squarer?
The "no crop, ever" fantasy is normally based on the (long, thin) 35mm format, and is most often embraced by mindless Cartier-Bresson fanboys.
Cheers,
R.
Thank you for illustrating my point of using a crop to overcome the limitation at the time a photograph is made. If all you have at hand is a square format camera but see a photograph requiring a longer, thinner format, you shoot with the intent of cropping later.
Incidentally, I can't recall a time when I deliberately composed for a format other than for the camera in my hand, outside of the aforementioned limitation situation. A big part of photography is selecting the right tool for the job. I don't think I'm unique in approaching image making by adhering to the native format of the camera in my hands. If that happens to be a square, I seek out images in a square format or if an image I have in mind requires a square format I will use a square format camera. Same for 35mm, panorama, 6x9, 8x10, etc.
If you had continued to read my post, you would have discovered I have indeed cropped and have cropped a lot of photos over the years. I'm not opposed to cropping. I just happen to fall on the side of avoiding it whenever possible.
An interesting tidbit about the no-crop club is that it's not all centred around Bresson. In fact it could be argued Bresson has nothing to do with the no-crop fanboy club. How often were his images printed with the rebate showing? He may well have printed his images full frame but not with the black border we have come to associate with the no-crop crowed.
The printing of full-frame with the black border became increasingly popular during the 60s and 70s among photojournalists, specifically conflict photographers, to show off their bravado. It was proof to other PJs they had gotten "close enough" in the words of Capa. The black borders proclaimed the tightly framed images of war and death were not done at a distance with a telephoto but with wide angle lenses, up close. It was a form of bragging you had the skill to frame a great photo amidst the chaos. This idea of framing an image under pressure (whether simply on the street or under fire) carried over to other photographic genres.
Printing the rebate border is also a way of proving a photograph of a scene has not been altered or censored through cropping, as a way of trying to establish a truth to the image presented (with the caveat always being the photographer can alter and censor through what he chooses to photography or how he frames a scene in the viewfinder.) It was an attempt to live up to the "a photograph doesn't lie" idea.
The no-crop, black border club was created by PJs as a sort-of secret handshake of sorts and as an attempt to illustrate the objectiveness of the images created. Today we've been left with the simple aesthetic and a vague notion of "pure" photography.
