The photo topic tonight aside my always interesting life? Cropping. Being a mid level photographer I find this an interesting subject, I have met photographers that despise cropping and have described it as "The Devil Himself" (not kidding). These photographers preach that "you must get it right in the camera", while I agree with getting it right in the camera I also think that getting the shot itself is important. Sometimes in life you cant ask a child to "hold that pose, right there Ace!" because lets face it, Ace is 2 and just like a child life is unexpected! Children move, people get in the way, drivers of vehicles pull right into your frame, and what do you do? Recompose the whole shot? Yes, but only after taking the initial photo and catching the original thought. I try to avoid cropping, really trying to "get it right in camera", but sometimes you just have to crop, crop, crop it! Here are a few examples of where cropping helped emphasize the subject of the photo (and I think was totally acceptable to crop!)
Now, if I hadn't snapped this shot off right at this very moment I wouldn't have caught the sweet moment between Grandma and Grandson. Sure, there is excess in the photo, but if I had zoomed in and focused the moment would have been gone. What did I do? I crop, crop, cropped it!!
Cropping the edges and removing the clutter in the photo makes the subject clearer. And, btw, I just love the orange cup!
Another great time to crop? When someone else takes your photo. Lets be honest, no one will take the time to compose your photo like you would... but to be in a photo you have to either have a tripod or use someone else to take the photo. This is the case in this photo, my wonderfully amazing brother took the photo of me, Husband, and their kiddos but didn't really get in there with the camera or the zoom. What did I do? I cropped it!!
Removing the excess "stuff" around the edges of the photo enriches the photo and all of its little amazing subject.
Like I said before, I do really try to get the photo "right" in the camera (and you should too!) but in these moments it was more about the moment and capturing its preciousness before it was gone, or before a child moved, looked away, etc... In summary, its not the end of the world if you have to crop but be mindful when you are shooting of unwanted items in your photos and try to eliminate as many as possible before taking the shot!
