To crop or not to crop.....

[delander †]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

All of the above point to situations where cropping may be acceptable but it still does not alter the fact that a good picture seen and taken as is, requires a higher level of skill than one which can be altered at will, with time to experiment etc.

 

We all love to take that photograph dont we? It is the ultimate achievement.

 

Jeff

[jaapv]

Nobody is denying the level of skill required. However, does that create a higher level of artistic value? In that case I can think of a large number of art objects headed for the rubbish bin. I think the quality of vision of the photographer, not the difficulty of rendering that vision, is the yardstick.

[lct]

...a good picture seen and taken as is, requires a higher level of skill than one which can be altered at will, with time to experiment etc...

Sure but who cares aside from the photographer? Do we take photographs to prove to ourselves how good photogs we are or to share something with others?

[Jeff S]

All of the above point to situations where cropping may be acceptable but it still does not alter the fact that a good picture seen and taken as is, requires a higher level of skill than one which can be altered at will, with time to experiment etc.

 

We all love to take that photograph dont we? It is the ultimate achievement.

 

Jeff

 

So, HCB exhibited less skill in his Behind the Gare photo than many of his others? That's exactly what you've said. And I continue to disagree.

 

Jeff

[lct]

Yes but we may also be egoists in photography. Some like to show their work, others don't care. For the formers only the result count as they want to please to others. The latters will find their pleasure in the way they take photographs like good artisans. There is room for both and for mixes of both in photography.

[Jeff S]

Yes but we may also be egoists in photography. Some like to show their work, others don't care. For the formers only the result count as they want to please to others. The latters will find their pleasure in the way they take photographs like good artisans. There is room for both and for mixes of both in photography.

 

Sorry, but I don't see the relevance to cropping.

 

Jeff

[jaapv]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

I think it is meant that we are individualists, some might put the emphasis on the craft of taking a photograph, which includes valuing the use of non-use of certain techniques, some might judge the end result and put no value on the methods used to obtain that end result.

[Jeff S]

That I can understand. But, he didn't really say that. Rather, he linked the thoughts into those who show their work versus those who don't. This is quite another concept.

 

Jeff

[lct]

To each his own, there are many kinds of photography. But some photographers will always have to show the reality: PJs like HCB, legal photogs like yours truly (i never crop then) and a couple of LUF members needless to say.

[Jeff S]

Ok, thanks... clearer now.

 

And, you've got HCB beat...as contact sheets later reveal. Congrats.

 

Jeff

[Guest]

Ok, thanks... clearer now.

 

And, you've got HCB beat...as contact sheets later reveal. Congrats.

 

Jeff

 

Whose contact sheets, Jeff?

 

Please look up. Do you see that black cloud above you? It will send a thunder your way for this remark. :D

Serious: imo cropping is photo editing within the space of each of the collected images.

 

Picture chosing (=selecting out of a "contact sheet", hence within the flow of time of an event "preserved") is something done today most often by someone else than the PJ. Several "shooters" are sent out with cams they don't own, but with a freely selectable number set on each cam, in order to know who to pay after the picture chosing. These are teams involving more people than on a football field and of cause latest technology.

Canon 1DMk2N was the first to have this feature (and I use some -one in each operatory and one on the OPMI - bodies bought 2nd hand- with ringflashes in dentistry to give each picture before taking a four digit number, which is the patient's number and shoot RAW and small jpeg on Compact flash and SD.) Now this feature is available also in a buget Pentax. But I already have my bricks in the office, they can be desinfected and are too heavy for the ladies to lift -and accidently be dropped.

 

So theoretically one could replace the existing abundance of surveilance cameras at vista points (with foreground, middleground and background according to Lhote and Pietro d. and Uccello) with the current state of the art... Canikon hooked up to mainframes and start chosing and cropping, too.

 

On the other hand: why not leave home for the afternoon or for life with a pre-war Leica (OK and a spare body) and a couple of rolls. See if you beat HCB

 

It's nice to play gentleman pheasant hunter with digi Ms (submachineguns), proclaiming that neither modern professional armies of shooters nor future technical possibilities, nor the giant pioneers exist

and have a good day.

But the internet confronting one with what else exists is the reality shock. That's also why (besides the respect for the subjects, who may like the pics 10-20 years down the line and also because of my mediocrity) I don't post my pics.

 

Over here it's raining and I have other things to do.

Nevertheless guys and gals: have a good week-end and GUT LICHT!

[pgk]

Being prescriptive about photography will diminish creativity. This applies to cropping. I prefer not to crop (as per previous post) but will do so if I have to/need to. Guidlines are useful, rules are far less so. This is an argument which probably tells us more about the person that the photograph.....

[250swb]

All of the above point to situations where cropping may be acceptable but it still does not alter the fact that a good picture seen and taken as is, requires a higher level of skill than one which can be altered at will, with time to experiment etc.

 

We all love to take that photograph dont we? It is the ultimate achievement.

 

Jeff

 

All photographs are 'altered at will', the time spent experimenting is the frame you took before the perfectly framed image, or the photographs you took the week before the perfectly framed image, or the year before...they are all part of a bigger experiment.

 

So you've already altered the scene in front of you by the experience of using the camera beforehand, like knowing what it does, how the controls alter the image etc.

 

Seeking the perfectly framed image provides the rules by which many photographers work. But its no more than learning by rote. And while anybody may be good at things learnt by rote, there is no skill in it. Anything practised long enough can become second nature. Its the very basis of camera club competitions because its easy to judge, 'x' should be here and 'y' should be there. So its easy to confuse being good at something with skill. The perfectly framed image is only a product of easy to administer rules of composition that suit the era to which they are applied. Of course it doesn't mean a perfectly framed image can't be a truly great image, but there tends to be something more going on than just where the edges of the frame lie and how components within it are arranged.

 

And this is why looking at Bresson's image we need to remember he was doing something new with composition, he broke the previous rules, and I'm sure he wouldn't have advocated anybody following his 'rules' but encouraged photographers to find their own rules. But he was dealing with 'art', where artists put themselves on the line by saying 'I have my own way of looking at things'. Its crash and burn for many, but still some move things forward by knowing of the previous rules, like composition, and breaking them. That is skill. And then fifty years later camera clubs catch up.

 

Steve

[Guest]

Sorry! Being aggressive can only be topped by playing the wise-guy-know-it-all as behaviour that I find despictably unsocial and uncivilized.

 

Dayly billions shop for a meal, cook it with delight and share it with others joyfully. It's just as perfect as photography

and is in no way affected by the fact that there is Le Notre and grand cuisine on one hand and very successful gastro-multinationals deliveing average to excellent meals to millions of people.

 

It's just that I sort of blew a fuse reading, that HCB has been beat.

Have a sunny week-end, Jeff!

Please don't let a inveterate, stauch, ultra-orthodox, true believer like me (Grand Palais last autumn: ahhh! ) tell you something you did not know before.

 

Cheers!

[delander †]

Nobody is denying the level of skill required. However, does that create a higher level of artistic value? In that case I can think of a large number of art objects headed for the rubbish bin. I think the quality of vision of the photographer, not the difficulty of rendering that vision, is the yardstick.

 

The level of skill required does create a higher level of artistic value, otherwise what is it all about?

 

I'm sure a large number of art objects should have been binned years ago.

 

The quality of vision of the photographer is the yardstick especially when it is applied when the photograph is taken, not later in front of the computer when there is ample time to compare one crop with another etc.

 

So when you show a 'good' print to another photographer why do they always ask, have your cropped that?

 

Why is HCB's 'behind the gare st lazare' often shown with an added black border to imply that it is the whole image as taken?

 

Jeff

[giordano]

Why is HCB's 'behind the gare st lazare' often shown with an added black border to imply that it is the whole image as taken?

 

What makes you think that other people infer from a black border that a photograph has not been cropped? All I see is a picture with a black border.

[bill]

Hmm... let me try another angle on this...

 

I sometimes take photos intending to crop after the event - the teddy bears shot, whilst intended in this thread to lighten the mood (which didn't seem to work:rolleyes:) is a prime example. I knew that I wanted it in "letterbox" format. So. That was my intent from the off; I didn't crop to "rescue", but to arrive at my pre-visualised end result.

 

How say the entrenched now? Should I perhaps have been carrying a panoramic camera around Sainsburys...?

 

 

Regards,

 

Bill

[giordano]

If cropping is wrong, it follows that you can only use a Hasselblad to take a landscape- or portrait-format picture if you use an A16 magazine. If the film stock you want to use is in an A12, you may only compose a square picture.

 

Quod, I submit, absurdum est.

[giordano]

I sometimes take photos intending to crop after the event - the teddy bears shot, whilst intended in this thread to lighten the mood (which didn't seem to work:rolleyes:) is a prime example. I knew that I wanted it in "letterbox" format. So. That was my intent from the off; I didn't crop to "rescue", but to arrive at my pre-visualised end result.

 

How say the entrenched now? Should I perhaps have been carrying a panoramic camera around Sainsburys...?

 

+1

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[delander †]

I am not saying that cropping is wrong, just expressing a personal opinion that when I get it right in camera first then it gives me a much greater degree of satisfaction than if I have to go home and crop it on the computer.

 

I think getting it right first time is more difficult and skilfull and I try to do it, is that so wrong?

 

I understand Bill's point that the camera used imposes a certain aspect ratio and if that is not what you had in mind when you took the photograph then crop away after the event.

 

Jeff