Roger Hicks
Veteran
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
Veteran
Cartier-Bresson made it so.
ferider
Veteran
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
second hand noob
I crop
cheers
cheers
paulfish4570
Veteran
nothing wrong at all with cropping. the native frame is not holy.
rodinal
film user
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
Veteran
OurManInTangier
An Undesirable
Hsg
who dares wins
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
Well-known
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
Well-known
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
Well-known
Correct. The tanks are in different positions relative to each other.
I don't even think this is a crop from that image ....
As far as I know neither image was taken by Jeff .....
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
Fischli & Weiss Sculpture
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
what?
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
Registered User
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
who dares wins
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
who dares wins
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
Registered User
When I crop to improve an image, I do so without regard to any of the standard aspect ratios.
Roger Hicks
Veteran
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.