Project 15: Cropping

The most difficult aspect of this project was selecting uncropped items from my portfolio. Cropping is something I generally do as part of my workflow, however I found 3 images that having been sitting in the archives. They are displayed with the original version first and the cropped version underneath.

The purpose of the crop of the station platform was to remove the emphasis from the arch of the ceiling to the repeating pattern of the posts. This has effectively changed the subject matter to a single architectural one rather than a view looking out from a station which incorporated some architectural features. I like it!

For the butterfly, the original shot was kept uncropped because I liked the expanse of white, the blurred hints of the 3 gerberas, and the small but prominent peacock butterfly. The only crop I could think of was to reduce emphasis on the white background and shift focus to the butterfly as a more prominent subject. Although I think the end result works, I won't be keeping it in my collection as I have a similar shot taken by creeping right up to the butterfly!

Finally the Bridge. I originally took this shot because I liked the distortion caused by the lens as it gave a different perspective of a much photographed subject. However I cropped it further to remove the distortion of the converging buildings. Unfortunately I feel this has created a rather static composition, as the converging verticals on the buildings, along with the light on the brick added some interest, as well as giving a sense of perspective, in my opinion anyway. However it could be argued that the cropped version is a more representational shot.

This has probably been my least interesting project to date, although it is always useful to take a fresh look at post production techniques. Cropping is regularly used in magazine critique; sometimes I agree with the suggestion and sometimes I don't. My mindset when cropping is usually:

a) to remove distractions
b) to alter frame shape to better represent the subject (e.g. panorama)
c) to make something bigger, such as the moon or an insect, albeit losing resolution
d) to improve the composition, usually at the same time as making something bigger or removing distractions
e) to shift emphasis

The latter is probably my least used reason for cropping but should probably take more importance i.e. what is this photo trying to tell me, what is it trying to convey. I expect it is used a lot in journalism.