Thread: general thoughts on cropping

I was thinking earlier today about the idea of "too-tight" cropping, in relation to the opposite idea that you see a lot in photography, which is "fill the frame".

Some noted awhile back about a butterfly photo of mine that the crop may have been too tight; while in my mind, I was filling the frame with the butterfly's beautiful detailed wings (side view, folded wings).

A recent post of a family photo (not mine) got some comments on the crop being slightly too tight. But does that mean it's not ok to want to "fill the frame" with the family?

I have just been curious what others' thoughts are on this

I've always been of the 'fill the frame' mindset, personally (it was one of the first pieces of advice I got to improve my snapshots and it made a huge difference). I struggle with this though. I often get in 'too tight' and that causes 2 problems that I have noticed ... one is that it often breakst he ROT. and while i recognize that the ROT is not the secret to a 'perfect' shot, it does seem to produce some rather pleasing results. the 2nd problem i have with the tight in-camera crop is when I go to print other sizes. my crop sensor produces a 2:3 ratio which is great for 4x6 prints. but when i go to print 5x7 or 8x10, then i often end up with a less than pleasing crop.

so ... while I'm a 'fill the frame' gal myself, i'm trying to back away from it a LITTLE to make sure that i can stick to the ROT most of the time and so that i can have different print sizes.

just my $0.02 worth.

Great topic for discussion!

Best,
GiGi

I am very curious to hear more. I am a bit confused at times too.

You're so right about needing at least a little extra space for different print sizes. I also personally love the Rule of Thirds and I use it basically all the time when doing all my non-snap photography! Usually when you fill the frame with a person's upper "half" the eyes naturally seem to fall in the upper 3rd, so that's good

I agree with Gigi. I tend to do the fill the frame as well as centering everything (guilty). The way I look at is imagine the people in the photo stuck in a box (crop) that you frame them into, if you were placed in this position/box wouldn't you want some breathing room? I think extra space above or to the left/right helps give that artistic feature to the photo and also help with ROT. JMHO.

i'm definately all about filling the frame, when i've had my work critqued i've been told to stop chopping off shoulders with my cropping. In camera I give myself enough space to crop in different aspect ratios, but once i crop I like to get in nice and tight...lol.

I agree, El. Especially when the photo is of someone looking off in the distance to the side, or walking at an angle (like several of my Eva shots this year), I like to have space in the direction they're heading or looking, to see where it's going. I feel that is an artistic way of composing a shot like that.

I suck at knowing how to crop. I find myself centering a lot...which tends to leave dead space above a person's head and it doesn't look great.

I also tend to get too close to the subject and leave no room for cropping, so I've been working on backing up!

I tend to not fill the frame in the camera and then try to crop the photos later. I do this mainly to try to avoid chopping of hands, feet, heads, etc... But when I do crop, I am always torn on HOW to crop. The other day I cropped a family photo of DH's family (like the WHOLE family, everyone in from out of state, which will probably never happen again). It looked great, until I went to put it in a frame. UGH, I had arms on both sides getting chopped because of the frame. I know that DH's grandmother didn't notice or even care, but it bothered me. I really need to work on that.

using negative space can be a powerful tool in your compositions. Maybe it would be fun to do a mini challenge on it?

examples: