To crop or not to crop

Finder said:
What you may think of as "guessing," other can consider it skill. After all, there is nothing that can be done with 100% certainty.
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By "guessing", I don't have a negative connotation (one might indeed understand that from my previous post, but I really don't); over here, I know of some courses where childeren first have to guess at the right outcome of a math problem before starting to calculate, as a means of getting a "feeling" for figures etc .. Being good at guessing is a skill, as is e.g. guessing the right settings for correct exposure.

I can live with your statement that nothing can be done with 100% certainty, and that is my point: why then should one decide never (that's a kind of 100%: no exceptions) to crop ? Maybe the distinction between trimming and cropping made earlier is what we are talking about ?

I guess (hm ...) it's just me: when I hear or read "absolute" statements (like "never", "always", "100%"), there's something in me that forces me to take the opposite side 😎

Stefan.
 
The torn edge is a great idea! After the last four months though, I need a break from the darkroom (I made over 100 fiber prints and toned about 60% of those in radioactive dip.) Over the summer, I am looking forward to spending some quality time with my scanner.

But I will be tearing my fake borders once I go back into the dark!
 
gliderbee said:
I guess (hm ...) it's just me: when I hear or read "absolute" statements (like "never", "always", "100%"), there's something in me that forces me to take the opposite side 😎

Stefan.
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You are the one making those statements. 😛

But we have something in common--we both like to decide the way in which we work. I have made my choice, which has nothing to do with anyone else.

I see shooting full frame as the physical performance of the photographic act--like in dance or sports. If you are really on the tracks, it comes together. How would you like to be in a performance and see the dancer take a couple of tries at the motion or perhaps give a soccer team as much time as they needed to make a goal? Photography is equally physically demanding and I include seeing with that.

Now you can get good images different ways--and no one is disputing that. But I find shooting full frame more rewarding and more involved than any other method. This discipline is what keeps me interested.

As Frank pointed out, no one is going to convince anyone to change. But the OP wanted to know the motivation of those that work that way. These are some of mine.
 
Sparrow said:
try tearing a paper rectangle 1cm smaller than the size of the easel , then exposing the outline before you do the print, even better if you wiggle it about a bit during the exposure ... worked for me
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And that would like nothing like a full-frame border, even if you discount the lack of edge markings. 😀
 
Finder said:
You are the one making those statements. 😛
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Did I ? I rechecked my postings on this subject, but I can't find a statement where I said I "always" or "never" crop or don't crop or another statement with "eternal truth"-value ..

The most positive statement I made is that:
- if you decide never to crop (and to each his own of course),
AND
- if you want to be the master of what will be in your picture and what will not be (I guess we all are in that position (again, not 100% sure; one might like to take a change, why not ?))
THEN you need a camera with a 100% viewfinder.

I don't know if these exist ? Some SLR come very close; I think the Olympus OM-1, OM-2, etc .. have a viewfinder that shows about 98% of what will be on film.

For the rest, I agree on your conclusion (and time to go to bed for me now; it's quite late over here; I'll read the rest of this topic tomorrow :angel🙂.

Stefan.
 
back alley said:
and your point is?
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My point is that they are different thought processes. Photographs happen in fractions of a second, writing words and music does not. You only get one chance in a fraction of a second... if you are writing music or words to paper, your brain can't help but think of better ways to do something when you are spending a lot more time and that's where editing comes into play.
 
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The idea is to make a strong composition. Anyway you do it is ok. Sometimes you can't get the angle that you need on the shot, but you know later you can crop it and get the shot you want. Anything that improves your image, and any way you do it, is ok. When you study painting, you see that painters always cover up the things they didn't like and keep working at it until it works. Believe me, no one says "oooh, you didn't nail it at first. You covered up your first start and changed it! No fair" Well, maybe an idiot might say that. Same thing w/ your photo. It's an image you're after, not a complete copy of the negative, which is just your starting point. What's the difference between cropping the shot and boosting the contrast? Or desaturating the file? Or burning in one area more than another on your print? It's all just editing your image until it works. Or, as Ansel Adams said, "I don't take pictures, I make them".
 
back alley said:
but the photographic process is much more than pressing the shutter button down.
it starts there but the post processing in also a big part of it. and pp involves editing.
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I couldn't agree more. Editing is very important. A body of work lives or dies in the process.
 
FrankS said:
I wonder what people think of view camera movements. Is it okay, or is it cheating somehow?
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I am not sure of the connection to full frame, but why not use them.

BTW, I don't think of cropping as "cheating." I just don't do it, at least after I take the picture.
 
I've enjoyed reading through everyone's posts. A little sparring going on, but it all seems to be friendly enough.

I think Finder (who was the inspiration for this thread, by the way 🙂) brilliantly articulated the key philosophical difference I was looking for.

Finder said:
I don't believe a subject defines a format, rather you use the format to the define the subject.
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After I read this, a big light bulb went off.

I happen to have the complete opposite opinion, which is why I'm OK with cropping my shots if I feel the scene dictates it. I'm willing to bet that this is probably the root issue differentiating those who only believe in shooting full frame from those who crop.
 
Sparrow said:
Roger; black outlines are easy to fake in photoshop, just don't use the same outline all the time
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Dear Stewart,

True, but I don't have Photoshop installed on my Meopta Magnifaxes, or in the Nova tanks. And although I'm quite happy to use almost any tricks in my photography, somehow I draw the line at fake borders added in Photoshop.

I'm always astonished at absolutist anti-croppers. As R2D2 points out, you can decide before you shoot what the composition is going to be. Quite often I'll decide that I'm going to crop out the bottom of a 35mm picture in order to make a panorama. To say that cropping is an attempt to save a failed picture strikes me as curious at the best of times, but in this case it's downright ludicrous.

Roland's argument about 'performance' is interesting because it's the exact opposite of AA's view that the negative is the score and the print is the performance -- which, to me, points up the weakness in both analogies.

And yes, I have several cameras with 100% viewfinders (Nikon F, Visoflex, and most of my LF cameras where you focus on the ground glass). And I'll still think, "Oh, yeah, I'll crop a bit off one or both of the long sides to make it longer and thinner" (I find the proportions of 4x5/8x10 squat and ugly) or "That might well work better cropped to 12x12".

Cheers,

R.
 

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Roger Hicks said:
Dear Stewart,

True, but I don't have Photoshop installed on my Meopta Magnifaxes, or in the Nova tanks. And although I'm quite happy to use almost any tricks in my photography, somehow I draw the line at fake borders added in Photoshop.

I'm always astonished at absolutist anti-croppers. As R2D2 points out, you can decide before you shoot what the composition is going to be. Quite often I'll decide that I'm going to crop out the bottom of a 35mm picture in order to make a panorama. To say that cropping is an attempt to save a failed picture strikes me as curious at the best of times, but in this case it's downright ludicrous.

Roland's argument about 'performance' is interesting because it's the exact opposite of AA's view that the negative is the score and the print is the performance -- which, to me, points up the weakness in both analogies.

And yes, I have several cameras with 100% viewfinders (Nikon F, Visoflex, and most of my LF cameras where you focus on the ground glass). And I'll still think, "Oh, yeah, I'll crop a bit off one or both of the long sides to make it longer and thinner" (I find the proportions of 4x5/8x10 squat and ugly) or "That might well work better cropped to 12x12".

Cheers,

R.
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That’s it I think, we all have our own standards, I don’t go round claiming my photographic ethics are superior to those of others. so I find it a bit irksome when “printing the full neg” is trotted out as the only true and proper method ... in the same way I don’t like evangelists coming round on a Sunday when even I know they should really be resting.

When taking photos of real-people in real-life in the real-world if one doesn’t take the shot when it’s there, there would nothing on the film anyway. It’s a different matter if one is trying to add to the world’s shortage of landscape or sunset photos, I even do the crop in the camera thing then myself
 
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Roger Hicks said:
To say that cropping is an attempt to save a failed picture strikes me as curious at the best of times, but in this case it's downright ludicrous.
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Call me ludicrous then. 😉
I just said that's how I think, not that you had to think that way. I didn't say I never cropped either!
But my last book, which you can buy on Amazon if you wish, contains 120 duotones and none are cropped. For the square format images I used 6x6. For the panoramic photos, I used a panoramic camera. For 3:2 aspect ratio I used 35mm. All are printed with black border so I could not crop without faking the black border which I did not wish to do. This is my personal challege which I enjoy but do not wish to impose it on anyone.
- Lucius P. Ludicrous
 
I just can't get away from, in my head, the fact that when I'm out taking photos, the frame is the only thing I have. I can understand cropping id that is what you have in mind when you take the photo, or you don't have the right gear to get the photo you need. What I can't get into is sloppy framing just because you can crop later...
 
It think the problem in this conversation is folks are setting up false criteria for the other side. I have done enough commercial and design work to know what is going to be cropped because the frame is the wrong aspect ratio for the space. I certainly teach people how to make their designs better by making the pictures work better by cropping. To say cropping is only fixing mistakes or sloppy framing is not true.

On the other hand, arguing against shooting full frame is equally futile. You can frame an image in camera. There are certainly lots of bodies of work to show this a valid method.

Say what you do and why. Don't disparage others for a technique you don't like.
 
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