Cut It Out - How Cropping Can Enhance Your Creative Photography
Jul 30th, 2008 | By Mr.K | Category: Feature ArticlesYou do it. You know you do. It’s okay. We all do it. It feels good. Everybody crops. Oh, you’re a full-frame never-crop guy? Well, you cropped your image when you took the picture by deciding where to stand and how you positioned your DSLR. Ha! Got you there. What’s that? You don’t decide where to stand or how to position your camera? You’re such a purist you don’t even look through the viewfinder when you take your pictures of “reality”? Well, you cropped the scene by deciding when to take it! Oh yeah. Now I’ve proven you’re a cropper, too. What? You’re such a diehard hipster traditionalist that you don’t even take photographs when you’re out taking photographs? Oh.
Well, for the rest of us, I thought I’d show an example of how I used cropping to enhance the message I was trying to convey.
This is Arlington West - Santa Barbara, CA. Every Sunday volunteers put up these white, wooden crosses. Sadly, each cross represents a US soldier who has been killed in Iraq since Bush launched the invasion in March of ‘03 - over 4,125 to date, though this image was taken 1000+ deaths ago. That doesn’t even count the 1,245,100 Iraqs that have been killed. So multiply the crosses by 300 to get a better idea of the impact from this blood for oil war.
This is the unaltered image. It’s almost the same cropping. Almost. Sure, it looks more visually interesting cropped, but that’s not why I did it. Cropping the top off reinforces the breathtaking number of crosses that seem to go on forever by allowing the viewers mind to imagine the crosses actually go on forever. If I left the part of the image in where you see the crosses end there is no room for your brain to extend them off into infinity. You follow?
These images were taken on the same day.
Personally, I don’t think they convey the message as strongly.
Your audience has a powerful imagination if you give them room to use it. Make room. The next time you are looking at your images, pause to consider if cropping something out might help better communicate your idea.
Nice!
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Your political rant detracts from what might have been an interesting perspective on the subject of cropping. I suppose this is one of the items excluded from being positive by the “mostly” modifier.
You’re certainly entitled to your opinions, but you might want to be aware that such off-topic excursions may alienate some people who otherwise would enjoy reading your opinions on photography.
People who don’t want to read opinions that are different from theirs do best not to read anything at all.
Frankly Brian I’m tired of all the shots showing soldiers in high tech gear and gleaming jets, while failing to show us what is going on a Guantanamo and other chambers of shock and awe. I’m surprised you didn’t accuse this blogger of being unpatriotic–that’s the usual distraction isn’t it?
Hey, I got a suggestion. Let’s see if Haliburton will let the photographers go to Dubai where the ill-gotten fortunes of war will have to be lit with special lighting to avoid specular highlights.
I want to thank this blogger for bringing forth the other side to the discussion. Hell, if I can appreciate the strobist site with it’s too-numerous-pro-military equipment shots, then Brian can swallow a little of his self-righteousness….and get on with photography
I was surprised that you didn’t say anything about croppin out the front part cuz i thought that to be more affecting on first sight since it gives the viewer more of a above perspective (like your watching this movie an the camera is just flying over this endless field…) rather than the “in front” perspective of the guy on flickr: “i just been at this cool location an did a nice shot. check out my great shot”
I think you got a point there but brian too in some way
I’d say that i wouldnt like photography being used to convey political interests or anything else but then pictures are always sending out a message….
difficult ;>
greez
Brian, the photo essay is a very important aspect of the medium we inhabit as photographers. It’s not all product adverts and glamor shots …
As for opinions: you can learn as much from someone you disagree with as anyone else - the act of communicating is entirely about technique and presentation. As long as there’s a modicum of thoughtfulness behind an opinion, it’s worth respecting (or at least humoring).
I’m confused about why it’s suddenly not okay for Mr. K to have artistic meaning behind one of his pictures. If you read his blog regularly (and I do) you’d know that the majority of his posts are about the art behind the photo. This one just happens to be an artistic statement about war.
I enjoyed this post because he used a photo that is personally important to him, but didn’t make it about the meaning of the picture as much as the cropping and how he used it to enhance his meaning. Whether I agree with it or not, I like the impact he made with the simple cropping tool. It’s a powerful artistic tool and this is a good example.
It’s really annoying when, god forbid, someone shares a viewpoint and then gets slammed for having one. As if everyone reading this or anything else doesn’t have a view point. At least Mr. K isn’t afraid to show his.
It would have been nice to have seen various crops of the same image. Going directly from the original to the final version glosses over the decisions that you made. I would also be interested in knowing when you adjusted the colours (ie, before or after the crop).
[…] takes advantage of the technique that I mentioned in last week’s article about Creative Cropping only I cropped on the spot by how I framed the image in the first place. I noticed one day on a […]