I’ve heard many times that you “should not” crop your pictures, but should get them right the first time, in camera. To that ‘rule’, I politely say: Hooey! There are, I find, many times when the in-camera crop is fine, but if you look a bit deeper, you can see other, different ‘pictures’ that you might not have considered at the time, and these are no less important than the first idea.
I have no problem, obviously, with cropping. Crop to your heart’s content. Experiment. Play. Discover. The other day as I was cropping some photos in a letterbox-style, I came upon this picture, whose original format was vertical. Naturally, the photo was about the player riding high, ball in hand, on the way to the basket. However, I stared playing with different crops, even horizontal, and came up with a photo that I liked equally well, or perhaps even better.
Here, the focus is still on the player, but the game is implied. You only see spectators, a basketball court, and the faces of the other players as they look on helplessly. There’s nothing that they can do about this high-flying player. With this crop, even though the offensive player is anonymous, I think that it is a more powerful shot. Of course, the shot would not be suitable, perhaps, for a newspaper sports section, or sporting magazine, but as part of a series on sports, perhaps, it might be pretty strong.
If you’ve never tried this before, I would suggest that you give it a shot. You just might find a way to invigorate some images that you might have not liked, thought were so-so, or never gave a second chance. Heck! It might even be an image that you liked!
What do you think about the crop vs. the original?
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7 Responses to “About cropping”
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Clearly, the cropped image has a greater sense of mystery. Without the reference of the player’s hands, you don’t know if he is still rising or falling. Great stuff!
“Crop to you heart’s content”
I couldn’t agree more. For me cropping is a vital part of the post-processing, of exploring the raw image. Of course, the closer the original shot is to the final result the better (the more pixel you have available for printing BIG) – but I very much enjoy the luxury of having a lot of pixels available so that I can afford to dump a couple of millions of them.
I prefer the cropped version. It leaves something for me to do. By taking action and filling in the missing information, I become more engaged with the photo. This is an excellent example of why and how to crop effectively.
I LOVE the crop! It’s a much stronger image, to be sure.
I cropped a couple of my Battle of the Hook photos before posting them. They were just stronger images that way.
There’s two things that can go on with cropping. The first I’d call finding the natural aspect ratio for an image. Not all images should be 3:2. Maybe square is right, thinner, fatter, something. I think we should all be very free about cropping in like that, framing and composing with a different aspect ratio in mind when shooting, all of that. I quite often shoot for square compositions, even though it doesn’t look that way through the lens of my particular camera. 4×5, 1×1, 3×2 16×9 none of these are a meaningful absolute. Let the image dictate the aspect ratio, not the technology.
But for me, that means cropping in on one side, or the other. I try very hard to avoid having to crop in to the image from multiple sides – then I feel I just took the shot badly, or had the wrong lens, or was in the wrong place. I work hard to get that right next time, in camera.
I’ve had people buy prints, who wanted to print them 14 feet across, from a 4Mp point and shoot. They paid more than the camera was worth that took the shot. If I’d been more free with being willing to crop my shots, they wouldn’t have been able to use it. That same situation has repeated several times – so I don’t crop into images. I don’t take images with the expectation of cropping in to them. I strive to get it right. It’s a good discipline to get into, particularly if you ever like to print your work. If it is mostly or all web display, then cropping is mostly fine (though you can usually see things getting worse there too – the softness and motion blur in your crop is a good example – fine at the full size, noticeable in the crop)
I agree that cropping is a powerful tool and like Gordon, I often shoot with a particular aspect ratio in mind (usually 1:1 or 2:1) although I quite often like to centre the action.
However, for this shot, I don’t think I like your particular crop. Personally, I think chopping the feet would work better for the effect. taking the head off the main subject just makes it look like you missed the action particularly as you’ve cropped (close to) 3:2. It’s also quite a strong image taking out the basket & no.44.
@Doonster: I’ll have to disagree with both of your comments.
I think that taking out the basket removes a necessary component of the second shot. It provides very good context.
Regarding the crop, I really like it, although as Gordon said, it is a bit blurry. The missing head, to me, implies great height, not a missed shot. Like I said, not destined for a sports magazine, but just an interesting crop. I like it.
Thanks for your input. It’s always good to have multiple views.