-Design Tip 2  - Environment

-Design Tip 3 - Aerial Perspective

-Design Tip 4 - Cropping

Why You Should Crop:

The left example is the photo full-frame - as it was exposed in the camera. As usual, my visualization and the shape of the film frame did not happen to match - why should they? The shape of the film is completely arbitrary. In terms of composition, there is no reason that subjects should perfectly fit into the shape of the film.

In this example, I wanted the whole vertical dimension of the film, so I did frame it correctly. However, the shape of the film meant I had to also accept extra image material on at least one side which I didn't want.

Getting rid of unwanted image material forced on you by the shape of the film frame is the most common reason you would crop a fine art photo.

If you study the two images, you will see that I did more than crop off the distracting potted plant (near the left edge). I also used the Rubber Stamp tool in Adobe Photoshop to make part of the plant and its shadow disappear!

Below, you see the cropping steps and three alternate results I came up with. Which do you like the most?

Why use the Rubber Stamp tool?

Using only cropping to remove all of the potted plant (version 2) forced me to remove too much of the left side of the image. If you look close, you will see that the composition has suffered. The horizontal element at the top of the door is now too close to the left edge and the whole image is to narrow.

The Adobe Photoshop Rubber Stamp tool let me remove the remaining part of the plant and its shadow, while leaving the rest of the left side alone. This allowed me to realize the photo I had visualized it at the time of  exposure.

Do you agree that version 3 is the best composition? That it is a stronger visual statement than the others?


Some photographers are horrified by the idea of removing part of an image with a retouching technique. But why? This is not a documentary image. I was not true to the physical facts of the subject, but true to the essence of what I saw. The cropped and retouched result is closer to my experience of the scene than the unchanged image because it emphasizes the flat, abstract, geometric qualities and shadow play that I responded to in this scene.

-My "Rules" for cropping photos:

1. "If it doesn't help - it hurts."

I hate it when people say "If you're not with us - you're against us." But cropping is one place where that saying holds true. Any visual information which is not strengthening your image is indeed weakening it - and it has to go!

I'm always amazed at the importance of edges and corners in rectangular images. You have to learn to pay close attention to them!

You must look at the edges and corners of your images to determine whether the visual information there is either distracting from your image (like the potted plant above) or is blandly repeating information from further inside the image. You should remove even this redundant visual information.

In the example image, the wall and pavement above and below the potted plant weaken the image because they are redundant. They only repeat visual information the viewer already gets from nearer the center of the image - without adding anything new of their own. Such repetition dilutes the impact of image parts which present new visual excitement. So, even if that potted plant had not been in the scene, the best cropping would be the same.

This is what I call an "Abstract/Geometric" type of image. You can   strengthen it by removing repetitious information because you then make it even more two-dimensional, abstract and geometric. Thus you concentrate the viewer's attention on the geometric forms and shadows.

2. "The subject must drive the composition - not the photographer!"

I've been saying this for a long time and it seems obvious. But still so many photographs show the result of photographers trying to force a design onto their subject.

The surest way you can get some of the subject's essence across to your viewers is to get out of the damn way and let the subject control the composition. This is one "secret" to making images with your soul. Don't get into a fight with your subject by trying to impose arbitrary "rules of composition" onto it.

Your "image imperialism" would only show that you have not yet learned to see well. Once you learn to see your subjects keenly, deeply and honestly, they will surely "tell" you (in no uncertain terms) how to best compose them.

Of course, you must prepare your mind by developing a strong sense of design and an understanding of the rules of visual grammar. Then, when you put your ego aside for awhile, you will see what the subject wants.

But don't forget that you learn rules with forgetting them as your ultimate goal.

Style and prejudice in cropping:

The Purist:

Purists will say that any change from untouched full-frame is "dishonest". They must think that applying the film frame to the world like a cookie-cutter  and excising rectangular hunks of the world is an important camerawork skill.

Purists display their photos with a black area around the film frame  -  to prove they haven't "cheated" by cutting anything away from the image.

My personal opinion (unless they are students doing a temporary exercise) is that they are being silly.

First, there is nothing "pure" about any photo. In its "purist" form, it is already an extremely abstract thing - far removed from the reality of the original scene. Remember, a photo is not a recreation of reality. As I like to say, "It's just a lotta dots!" Everything but those dots on paper or plastic or glass is strictly in the "eye of the beholder".

Second, there is nothing about the arbitrary shape of a film frame that makes it any better than any other shape - unless you believe some myth like the ancient Greek "Golden Mean", or that movie and TV screens represent the ideal shapes for all images.

Third, Purists must either:
1. Weaken the photos they make - by ignoring the framing that works best for the composition of each shot and forcing the arbitrary film shape onto the subject, or,
2. Reject all the potential good images whose composition doesn't happen to match the shape of the film frame.

Either way, this is a waste. Purists are not letting the subject drive the composition. They are saying to the subject, "I will tell you what box you must fit into."

Fourth, if cropping off a slice of a photo and not showing it to the viewer is dishonest, what about cropping off the whole rest of the universe when you frame your shot and not showing that to the viewer? If the one is truly dishonest, must not the other also be?

In the long run, I guess it's a matter of whether you believe in absolute truth. Purists do.

You might want to try being a Purist for a while. It's good discipline, if you don't turn it into a religion, and the extra limitation may help you find your freedom sooner.

The Arranger:

Sometimes, a good composition can be made by the photographer themselves physically arranging objects in the photo. That's how Hollywood usually does it. "Still life" images and "studio portraits" are arranged, not found.

Even the "found" subjects that I like to work with can be re-arranged somewhat. For example, the potted plant in the cropping exercise above could have been moved out of the scene.

I've been known to break off twigs that are in the way of my lens, or pick up a distracting cigarette butt. However, I would really rather leave things as they were when I discovered them. I guess that's my bow to the Purists.

The Quasi-Purist:

The Quasi-Purist will crop an image, but would be horrified at the idea of "retouching" something out of a scene. I feel that if I would be willing to physically move something out of a scene, then I shouldn't hesitate to use digital processing to remove it - if such processing is true to and strengthens my original vision.

The Pragmatist:

The Pragmatist will do anything that improves an image - maybe even adding things into a scene digitally that weren't actually there!