Cropping

9 – Cropping

Find 3 earlier examples of work and crop to see if you can see different pictures within the photographs you have already taken

Cropped version of a photograph below that I hadn't done anything with, taken earlier this year.  I tried several crops but was most surprised and delighted by the one posted here.  I liked the abstract nature of it.  My eldest son took a photograph of the reflection of lights on water when he was 5 and it was a wonderful photograph (which we had printed but has sadly gone missing).  I also noticed Joel Meyerowitz (video posted by Richard Down on the OCA Facebook page) had a beautiful image which reminded me of my son's photograph.  The resolution is obviously lessened by cropping and I have cropped less and less as times has gone on.  I certainly don't tend to do dramatic crops and sometimes crop in-camera too close, cutting it fine and giving myself no room for manoeuvre.

I watched a video of Jared Polin (Fro Knows Photo) giving a lecture to some students and he was pretty anti cropping and I get why.  I also see that this exercise can help you to see things differently - change your expectations.

Photo: ISO 400 10mm f4 1/640

When I printed these I was most delighted by the print quality which was very poor as it was on A4 paper rather than photographic paper as I could only find small paper and the exercise asked for large prints.  I'm thinking we needed to do it on large paper to see if there was any loss of resolution and I guess there would be but it would depend how much you cropped by.  My mum uses her zoom lens and then crops the a small bit of detail so by the time she has her final image the resolution is really poor - but it makes her happy that her camera is so clever and can see things from so far away.  I think it might be an interesting project if the intention behind that was itself interesting as the poor quality could be something worth playing around with.  I've realised recently that intention is crucial.  Anyway, I liked the print quality of these prints  - it was as if it they been painted with these images in particular because of the colours.






ISO 200 20mm  f4.5 1/40

This image (3) was one from one if my very first baby shoots earlier this year although not one that was edited and sold  - I think I've done about 5/6 family shoots now.  I cropped into the sleeping face and don't think the crop does anything that another photo would have done better - I prefer the original at the bottom of the page. 

 

I've cropped right in and the hand looks almost plastic - on my screen you can clearly see the pixels.  It lacks any clarity and sharpness.

I prefer this out of these three examples because the point of the photo  is to see the whole vulnerable baby.  He's not even mine and I think 'aaaah!' when I see him lying there with his little monkey typical in baby pose.  We've evolved to be cute as infants so as to elicit feelings of protection, from what I understand, and this baby is fulfilling his evolutionary expectation in spades.



ISO 100 44mm f2.8 1/100