I was having a chat with YesBut on my personal blog and the question came up, can you teach cropping? I believe so, and as I am better these days at finding content, than creating it myself, I went on a search (also there are people that are so much better at it than I am).
- Cropping for Impact - has a number of before and after shots along with strategies for improving your photo through cropping.
A note on this - I was often advised that if I had a choice, then take a photo of the object close up, then take one slightly more distant, so that you can crop for impact later. - Every picture tells a story has the following points on cropping:
- Do: take your time
- Do: zoom in/out to help frame the picture
- Do: look for distractions and remove them (either physically or through camera position, orientation and zoom)
- Don’t: put the subject dead center in every photo (see rule of thirds discussed later)
- Don’t: get stuck in horizontal hold, rotate the camera vertically to see how things look
- Don’t: get stuck shooting at eye level, change height to help crop out distractions or improve composition
Note on this one: it has a good section on the rule of thirds - an important consideration when taking interesting photos.
I was invited to crop a photo as an example, however as I said - this is more an appreciation site as I am not very good at taking and manipulating photos myself, and it is a skill that I admire in others, so I didn’t feel up to the challenge.
I will, however, show one that I did do, and explain the reasoning behind it, and suggest you join a Flickr group such as Cropaholics, who allow you to post photos into the discussion and people will then suggest how they would crop it.
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Basic barbed Wire Photo |
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Barbed Wire Photo with Depth of Field Note that there are blurred cars in the top right hand corner, and the blurry fence draws the eye away from the knot (the barb) that is supposed to be the focus. |
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Cropped Barbed Wire Photo Note that I put the barb in the top portion of the photo and left the recurring pattern of wires remain in the shot… an ‘artisit’ call on my behalf, but the idea is that you, the photographer, know what they want out of the photo… it’s your call what you draw attention to through the crop. |
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