To crop or not to crop.....

I am new to Large Format and am finding that a lot of the

transparencies I get back look better slightly cropped (and sometimes

more than slightly!). In 35mm this wasn't really an option for

enlarging the slides, but in LF the image size is so huge it doesn't

seem like a problem.

 

How often do you crop your images? Should I work more on my

composition with the view camera so I don't have to crop the images

later? Your feelings.....

I don't ever crop an image. I try to see it already cropped in the

ground glass. For some reason, to me that seems like cheating.

Many times I find that I want to include as much as I can in a

photograph. The result is a busy complicated image with no

meaning. Now I am using longer lenses and guess what? I see

better. I leave outside what doesn't make the image any better

and leave in what actually helps the image became stronger so

tha it doesn't need and explanation.

It seems to be working for me very well!

If an image can be strengthened by cropping, then crop. Why leave in a distracting element? It's perhaps desirable to use the negative as fully as possible, but there will be times you will miss things on the ground glass. You indicate you're just starting out in large format. With experience you'll probably find your seeing mature and you may not need to crop as much.

 

Regards,

I rarely crop with landscapes and other still lifes but find with my rather limited selection of lenses I often crop with portraits. To get full frame with my fave lens would result in parking on my subjects toes.. Not exactly a good practice. So until I get a longer lens I crop. Usually ends up being a 2x3 equivalint which is a reasonable sized neg I think. <p> But regardless of what the rest of us do, they are your images. Do whatever you d*rn well please with them. Unless you are a photojournalist of course ;) <p>

 

Cheers,

I usually crop to the area I envisaged in the field. I like the panoramic format for some subjects, but I'm not going to buy a whole new camera to achieve it when I can easily crop my LF image. <p>

 

As Ian said, they're your images - you choose the format.<p>

 

Graeme<br>

 

<a href="http://www.goldeneyephoto.com">www.graemehird.com</a>

Now, what exactly is cropping? I believe that if what you are

photographing either does not fit the format of your ground glass

or if for some other reason, such as not having enough of a lens

selection, you need to get closer but cannot, and you see, at the

time of exposure, that you want to use less than the full negative,

then by all use less than the full negative. I do not consider that

cropping.

 

What I think of as cropping is after you make your first work print

you look at it and then decide that it is not very good and would

be made better if you, say, cut off the left edge by an inch. In

these cases, unless it is one of the greatest and most profound

photographs ever made, which will be doubtful for any of us,

myself included, that you give yourself a swift kick and vow to see

more carefully the next time. After a while, seeing the photograph

complete on the ground glass will be second nature. There is a

great joy and satisfaction (at least there is for me), when the

picture comes together on the ground glass.

 

It is a also lot easier not to crop--the prints are all the same size;

mount board and overmats are always the same size; and

printing times, if you are enlarging, can quickly be guessed

accurately because the enlarger is always at the same height.

 

But in the end it really doesn't matter whether you crop or not.

Whether you do or not is a function of where you get the greatest

excitement in the process of making your photographs.

 

Michael A. Smith

What did he say? "The negative is the score."?

I believe we'd all like to get to the point where we can compose on the gg and end up with absolutely the best possible framing of what ever the particular subject is we are photographing. I don't believe anyones power of pre-visualization is so perfect however, that there won't be times we see things a bit differently and be able to make improvements in the darkroom. In the end, I don't feel this is a bad thing, because if we can further distill what we saw during exposure and come up with something better, we've succeeded in coming up with, well, something better. In doing so, we are actually training ourselves to see better the next time we are out making exposures. I also fail to see any sin in later realizing that there is yet another photograph within a photograph.

My belief is that there is one thing and one thing only that counts. That is the final result, the print (or slide in your case). How it was made - whether the photographer had to stand on his or her head in sub-zero termperatures for days on end to get it, what was burned, what was dodged, how it was developed, what was or wasn't cropped, how difficult it was to print, etc. etc. are all unimportant. Only the final image is important. So if you think the final image will be improved by cropping, have at it. No reason in the world I can think of for presenting an inferior image because you thought there was something wrong with improving it by cropping.

 

I make every effort to avoid cropping by being as careful as I can in the initial composition, just as I try to be very careful with my exposure so that I can avoid extensive burning, dodging, flashing, masking, etc. But inevitably there will occasionally be something that can be improved by cropping, just as there will be something that can be improved by dodging, burning, etc. I see nothing wrong with doing any of those things to improve the final image. I'd guess that I end up cropping by some degree, sometimes just a very tiny part of the negative, on maybe a third of my negatives, possibly more. Major crops - like cutting out a third of the negative - are very rare.

I don't think that the proportions of one's groundglass are always ideal for a particular scene. I also think that sometimes a photographer is forced to place his camera in a position that is not ideal. My last thought is that some photographers can't afford to buy a lens that would fill the groundglass with the view they would really like to have.

 

I'm a strong advocate of using different size backs and rollfilm holders so as to get the most out of the lenses one has. Backs and holders are cheaper than lenses.

What Brian Ellis said!

I don't "usually" crop but shoot full frame. It is always a judgement call on your

part and this is the reason why alot of us have an array of lens to work with.

Starting out, your only going to have one or two lens and it is good to work in

those realms and hone your craft... stay within your limits and work a photo. It

will help you shoot with your other formats drastically being that you will be

more selective! It's like going out with your 35mm to shoot and only bring the

50mm! It will be amazing what you find to fit that realm. Practice looking down

and around when you have your LF camera with you... before you set it up.

Put everything down and just look around. This will give you a sense of what

there is around you before you look into the ground glass... To answer your

question... yes, work on your composition and selection of images. LF is alot

more expensive when you look at it and figure that you are shooting 2 sheets

instead of rocketing off 36 frames. I have yet to see a decent motor drive for LF

except the roll aero cameras! LOL

Cartier-Bresson once said something like, a poor picture can never be turned into a good one by cropping (it's either there, or it's not). I say that I've almost never seen a photograph which can't be improved by a little judicious cropping. Who you gonna believe?

The best quote ever on cropping (I can't remember the

photographers name)

 

Q: Do you crop, or feel cropping is wrong???

 

A: As photographers we are cropping the world....yes I crop.

<I><B>"My belief is that there is one thing and one thing only that counts. That is

the final result, the print (or slide in your case). How it was made - whether the

photographer had to stand on his or her head in sub-zero termperatures for days on

end to get it, what was burned, what was dodged, how it was developed, what was or

wasn't cropped, how difficult it was to print, etc. etc. are all unimportant. Only the

final image is important."</B></I><P>I Absolutely agree with Brian. Avedon crops,

Arnold

Newman crops, Irving Penn crops, Weegee cropped, Walker Evans cropped, elliot

Erwitt crops, Dorthea Lange cropped, Ansel Adams cropped and so did Steichen &

Steiglitz. <U>The only thing that matters is the final image!</U><P>Does this mean

that you should not work harder on your framing and compositional skill

(composition is the arrangement of elements inside the framing)? No absolutely not.

You absolutely should! Good framing from the get-go is one of the skills you can

learn from working with small format cameras that you can transfer to working in

large format. Close attention to details of composition is one of the skills you can

take from working with larger formats back to smaller formats.

Absolutely Ellis

 

Walker Evans said (pretty much)

 

"Stieglitz said you should never crop so much as a quarter of an inch

out of a negative. I'd crop any number of inches from a negative if the

result were a good picture."

 

Brassai cropped, Kertesz crpped, Robert Frank's pictures in the The Americans are cropped, Gustave Le Gray and Charles Negre often cut and pasted two negatives togewther for highlight and shadow. Paul Strand even removed elements from his pictures he didn't like, at a later date.

 

But why photograph according to a no cropping rule? Lots and lots of reasons too.

Ditto to what Brian said. I crop quite often when shooting in the 6x12 format. I use to have a 6x12 back but I sold it when I realized that it was kind of dumb to spend $700 for a 6x12 back and have the extra weight to carry around when the same exact thing can be done through cropping. Granted, 4x5 film is more expensive than rollfilm, but you can buy a heck of a lot of film for $700 !

"...a lot of the transparencies I get back look better slightly cropped (and sometimes more than slightly!)."

 

I think the issue here isn't whether or not to crop an image, but why you feel that many of your images need cropping. Nothing wrong with cropping an image -- that's one of the beauties of shooting LF -- I'm just mystified as to why, as a somewhat normal course of action, you feel your images need cropping. Perhaps you're still viewing the world in the more elongated aspect ratio of 35mm. I know that when I've had the opportunity to go out and shoot with a Fuji 6x17 camera, I start seeing the world in long slices rather than slightly rectangular windows. Over time, maybe you will "see" more in the format you're using and feel less inclined to crop.

I never ever crop. Unless the subject matter has an aspect ratio other than 4x5. Or I can't get close enough. In other words, I always crop.

 

CXC

I guess the real question is...

 

Are you not cropping in the camera because you can't decide what is important?

 

If you try to get all of it in on one piece of film and then crop the film, you're losing some of the benefits of shooting in large format. By thinking about what is important before you set up your camera, and then making the decision to crop in the camera, you'll have a big beautiful neg to print. Using the fact that you have a big neg and it won't matter to crop later, won't help you develop an eye for truly seeing in the field.

 

BTW, I've cropped before, and will probably crop again... But I do try and compose for the format I'm shooting in.

Look, Ma, I'm agreeing with Brian Ellis!

"then crop the film, you're losing some of the benefits of shooting in large format"

 

I thought one of the advantages of bigger negatives was you could crop.

 

Let me ask this. Why should any one print the same negative the same way every time? Shouldn't we be able to see some thing different?

I think that the benefit of shooting with larger film (other than the shifts, tilts, etc...) is that you have more real estate to print from.

 

That clariy, that smoothness... Are for the most part due to having more square inches of film to print from. Cropping out those square inches kinda defeats the purpose doesn't it? If I crop my LF negs down to 35mm size, why don't I just shoot 35mm?

 

IMHO, perspective controls and the detail and clarity that a large negative provide are the main reasons I shoot LF.

 

(If you don't believe me... The next time you take a photo shoot 1 sheet how you normally do, and then shoot another with ONLY what will be the final crop... Print both and see which is better) Why waste any part of the film? Use it to it's best advantage!

Crop or be cropped!

 

I remember having this discussion in college in 1973. Some things never

change.

 

My suggestion....do whatever makes you happy.

When an author writes a story, and then reviews what he has written he often rewrites many times before he is satisfied enough to call it a finished story. Likewise a painter painting a picture will paint over, or change certain aspects of the painting before he calls it a day. Why should a photographer be held to a different standard?