The case for cropping..

Sometimes, when zooming in on a photo to delete pesky dust spots (that reside now not just on my lens or mirror, but even inside my camera); I coincidentally see a different picture within the picture. It can completely alter the narrative.

“Real photographers don’t crop..” said someone.

“Who cares”, says me.

The famous photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson, was almost apologetic about the the few photos he had to crop! One of his greatest photos- “Place de l'Europe, Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare”, is one of only a few photographs he ever cropped.

The one downside to cropping is loss of resolution if one intends to do a larger print. Best would be to see the crop/composition in camera, rather than after the fact.

Sometimes though, I simply don’t see it in the moment, and adjust settings accordingly. Learning Я Me!

Some examples..

Original photograph..

I was drawn to the ship glinting in the setting sun, as a backdrop through the gap in the rocks with all the birdy-birds. I focused on the foreground and birds.

Tighter crop, with more emphasis on the ship.. Now I notice the heron, which had just landed.

And tighter still.. I now became aware of a different story unfolding on the rock. The heron arrives and immediately asserts itself in the hierarchy.

The photo becomes visibly grainier, and that’s just on my laptop screen. If this was, say, printed to A3 size or larger, it could become unacceptably apparent if you stuck your nose to it. But then, so would a massive billboard viewed close up.

Net result being I’m now confused as to which I prefer. Probably this last one.

The next three are another example. I’d been eyeing out this scene for a while when driving past. This time the light was great, but I was on the far side of the highway.. not ideal. I was drawn to the strange tractor come-podium, with our national flag. Then I noticed the bath tub, so weird and out of context. And the the last crop, sans both tractor and tub, just a pole and peaks, is probably my favourite- clean and minimal.

Original image

Tighter crop..

And now, just Two Peaks & A Pole.

Below, another example:

Original photo

A further subtle crop..

And then an even tighter crop, to a very minimalistic pastel image..

..and probably my favourite..

Below is another more extreme example..

At first I saw this lovely, warm, pastoral scene in the setting winter sun..

But it was really the copse of poplars that caught my attention..

..and only then noticed what might be a raptor, high in the branches. Which it turned out to be, and fortunately still in some focus. A crop gave, to my imagination anyway, a feel reminiscent of a delicate Chinese silk print I had hanging in my childhood bedroom. It was a treasured piece of my Mom’s..

This..