To crop or not - Your opinions, please :-)

Hi All,

 

I took this last week and really am not certain as whether to crop it or not.

 

On one hand, I like that you can actually see in the full frame shot that Asta is about to take a corner, and that is

why she is looking left. On the other hand, the edge of the door is also quite dominant in the frame.

 

Here is the full-frame version:<div></div>

And here is the crop...

 

Thanks in advance for your advice :-)

 

Soeren<div></div>

I'd split the difference (see below). Lose the door frame, as you say... but don't come in so close. By leaving more of the hallway on the left and top, you preserve the larger sense of adventure. You might also dodge on her face and hands just a bit, to help draw the eye more to that lively expression. Good narrative qualities, here.<div></div>

I would crop it for the very reason you noted; either your version or the alternate suggested are better in my opinion.

regards, cb :-)

I'd say don't crop, if purely for technical reasons. Your crop makes it very obvious that her face isn't sharp.

dont crop.. the door frames in the child

What a wonderful face and expression. Maybe crop in some on the left as well. She looks just a tad too far to the right now but not much. I would try to get rid of the distractions; i.e..the window and the black doorway or whatever it is at the end of the hallway - extend the wall to do so? Clone out the window?

Got to keep that face and expression, it is great.

I never crop Leica pictures. The joy of shooting with a Leica is recording what you see in the moment through that little window. If it's a Nikon shot crop away to your heart's content. (I find that I do often crop my D3 pictures.)

 

Seriously though, I like the uncropped shot.

I like the crop. The door's too distracting. Her face is sharp enough! (The expression's great).

Don't crop. It is not perfect when cropped.Keep the "snapshot spirit".

I will use full frame...it adds more story to this picture ;)

Burn in the door frame some?

I would keep the door, but why not fix the perspective - or is that against the purity laws?<div></div>

Don't take this the wrong way, but nothing beats getting the composition right before you click the shutter. That possibly being

obvious to you, I'd say you would crop if she were looking straight ahead and not crop since she's looking to her left in

heightened anticipation of someone being just around the corner. Your decision.

Soeren - Your cropped version is perfect! It even complies with the law of thirds...

As a few guys have said above, do not crop. And I mean ever. Cropping is like drawing in charcoal or pencil. Not cropping is like drawing with ink. Which do you think will give you more satisfaction? Besides that, not cropping makes the picture more interesting. When you crop the same sense of composition will be in every picture. That is boring.

<i>Cropping is like drawing in charcoal or pencil. Not cropping is like drawing with ink. </i><P>Bruce, I have to give you credit for coming up with the most absurd argument ever presented for not cropping. I have charcoal, pencil, and ink artwork in my house, I could care less what someone did to get to a piece that moves me. The same thing applies to cropping. I don't care as long as it sings to me. BTW, many great oil paintings, maybe most although I haven't done a statistical analysis, involved painting over areas more than once.<p>Once again, credit for coming up with an amazing argument. No credit for an argument that ignores what art is about, which is what the viewer sees, not what the artists does.

Almost all photographs can improved with a little judicious cropping -- this is an excellent example.<P>I have to laugh at those "perfectionests" who say never crop, while they take the pictures with a Leica whose viewfinder shows only 80% of the scene recorded on the negative. LOL!

How about burning in the edge of the door so it's less of an eye-catcher? If the story is she's about to turn into a new adventure then the door needs to be there, it just needs to be less obtrusive.

Hi again,

 

that really was a lot of well-thought-out advice - thanks for that !!

 

After a lot of contemplations - and some sleep - I decided to crop a little on the left but keep the door. Mainly

because she is looking that way - Orville made a good point there. I did burn the door in, as well.

 

As for the "philosophy of cropping" I *do* try to get the composition right in the viewfinder and keep the picture at 100

%, but when it is not possible to do so (due to, e.g., point of view or focal length), I'm not against it as fundamentalist

photographer might be. I also very occasionally clone out a little bit of something that my brain didn't register at the

time of taking the picture. In the end I try to communicate what my brain saw - not necessarily what my lens saw. If

you get my point :-)

 

Thanks again for yor responses - I'll keep reading this thread, so please don't consider it closed yet :-)

 

Soeren<div></div>

Bill, how dare you laugh at HCB? I liked Bruces's metaphor, but still some artists use only pencil, some only ink and some

like both? Nice picture anyway, Sören!

How about dodging Asta some? My only real problem with the picture is (and that might be a problem with eyes or the monitor's calibration) is that she doesn't stand out against the walls and floor quite enough.

I`d crop.<div></div>

Of all the crops Jose Angel's is the one that I like best.

 

But it's still not as good as the original.

 

I think it's a really good picture by the way.

Well, HCB himself actually cropped at least ONE picture significantly - the famous one of a man jumping a puddle behind Gare St Lazare in 1932. It was shot though a fence (or something similar), so the entire left third of the frame was blocked, turning the negative transparent. Furthermore (or, fortunately for HCB), the bottom third was just empty puddle, so he cropped this as well to come up with the final image - preserving the 24x36 proportions, even faking the "full frame darkroom border" :-)

 

And thanks for the positive words about the picture itself, by the way - I really enjoy the facial expression with all its expectancy. She is actually looking for her grandfather, wanting to show off with her new toy that she just got the day before...

 

Soeren