CROPPING FOR POWER

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Cropping in the digital age is extremely easy. Not only is it easy, but your chosen crop is repairable, if you feel that you made a mistake (this is the value of using the RAW file format).

Most digital cameras have a standard rectangular aspect ratio. Some images however might fall apart if left un-cropped. Why is this? Too much useless and unnesessary space either above or below the main subject matter.

This attached photo of musicians was a prime example. I was extremely pleased with the quality of light on the faces and upper bodies, however below the waste was just pure shadow. I could have left the shadow in, but I felt that the image would express much greater power and authority if it was a bit tighter. I decided to keep the viewer's attention on that which is the most emotive, and get rid of the unwanted elements.

Now, here comes the more controversial part. I believe that cropping just slightly below the top of the head is (sometimes) another means of positing greater drama and strength within a portrait. If you say this out loud at a photographer's association meeting, they would no doubt shout you down quite quickly. However, it is not the photo associations that effect and forcibly evolve compositional design; it is the fashion and art magazines that set the trends. Look through Vanity Fair, or even a J. Crew catalog, and you will see that the photographer or graphic designers are far less concerned with "appropriate" cropping, as they are with creating visual power. Often you will see crops with the tops of heads cut off . . . I like this, as it is indicative of an attitude of indifference toward established visual precepts.

The only downside to intelligent cropping is a loss of resolution. It is best therefore to increase your resolution in your RAW converter prior to any Photoshop editing.

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