by Brenda Tharp
Why is cropping frowned upon by some, and used heavily by others?
In the many courses I have taught here at betterphoto, there have been frequent discussions about cropping. Some feel it’s NOT ok, others feel there’s nothing wrong with it. Some instructors fall in the first category, others in the second. What’s really the best choice, then?
That depends upon your intentions and overall philosophy on photography. Let’s look at both sides:
The “no cropping” school of thought:
In general, I'm in this category, because of the way I was trained in photography. I learned using print film early on, but went to transparencies soon after starting my business, and there I learned that editors didn’t like to see silver tape or cropping masks on the originals you were sending in for consideration. That meant I had to get a lot better at getting the image I really wanted in-camera, so I didn’t have an ‘almost’ picture afterwards. I’m glad of this - it sharpened my vision, and my technical skills. I learned to see the real picture within the scene, and how to use my position and my lenses to isolate the subject and make the image what I wanted it to be. This not only improved my skills, but it improved my acceptance rate at the stock agencies and magazines that saw my pictures.
It’s best to get it right in camera because it’s an affirmation that our creativity is going at ‘full tilt’ - that our technical and visual skills are working well together. It means we don’t have to make excuses for our sloppiness, because we won’t have any unwanted things in our pictures.
There is a common problem with many cameras giving us more than what we see in the viewfinder, and after being frustrated having to remember that, or compose tightly enough to make sure I eliminated things I didn’t want in the edges of the picture, I finally just went with 100% viewfinder cameras. But since not everyone can do that, it is worth doing an exercise to see just how much extra you really get, and then learn to compose tighter to keep that extra stuff out.
So, I’m of the opinion that this is the best way to go, but then comes digital scanning and digital photography and image editing! But the facts remain, I’d rather know what I want up front and do everything I can to make that picture than try to make it work out later by cropping.
The “cropping isn’t a bad thing” school of thought:
A lot of people fall into this category, and a lot of students. While I don’t “hang out” in this group regularly, I have been known to crop (OH my gosh!) a few pictures in my time. Why? Because there are pictures that I envision as a great panorama image, and I’m working with 35mm ratio. Because some patterns and designs work really well as a square image, and I don’t own a Hasselblad. I used to walk away from potential pictures because they didn’t fit the ratio of the 35mm, but these days, that’s changed. I’m an artist - and that means self-expression is unlimited!
Although I don’t agree with using that philosophy as the excuse for having made a sloppy picture, I can use it to explain why I made something off-ratio. There are a lot of great pictures out there that don’t fit the 35mm ratio. So, as long as I have an artistic plan before I make the image that will define the shape of it, that’s OK for me. But if I find myself cropping afterwards because I ‘didn’t get it right in the first place’, that’s not OK -for me.
There you have it - thoughts on the never answered question of cropping. I hope that you will all see the value of learning to see the image before you make the picture, rather than afterwards. But if you want something different than the format you are using allows, and a post production crop is going to give it to you, then crop away!
To learn more about photography, explore the photography classes offered here at BetterPhoto.