Cropping 2 - Reframing After The Fact

In order to discuss cropping, we need to define what we mean - ignoring incamera cropping and concentrating on 'post processing', one can crop vertically or horizontally to change the aspect ratio of the image, or one can crop both height and width to esssentially 'reframe' the shot.

I'd like to discuss this latter. The obvious retort is that any time you crop both hieght and width, it means you screwed up in the camera. That's true in the strictest sense, but there are times when it is justified.

The decision on how to crop an image is not trivial - all you have to do is put up a picture and ask for cropping suggestions and you end up with all sorts of ideas. I can spend 30 minutes working out the best way to crop an image - trying various crops in Photoshop, only to come back the next day and change my mind - not all good images have obvious borders and there are compromises and choices - emphasize this at the cost of that, etc.

I can sometimes take that long to decide on framing in the field - I certainly did in the days of 4X5. Nowadays, with digital, I simply shoot more than one image to give myself a choice later.

But what about when there isn't time to take even 1 minute to decide on framing/cropping? Even in landscape work that isn't uncommon - with the right light being fleeting, or the wind coming up again, or the sun going down, or whatever. Photographing animals and people, or even vehicles, you may simply be lucky to get the shot at all, never mind fussing about exact framing.

Another issue is that cropping sometimes needs to be extremely precise - even 1/16 inch / 1 mm. can make a difference along an edge. Another scenario is where you are corrrecting perspective distortion (falling backwards buildings and trees) and it's not clear exactly where the boundaries are going to be after correction. Rangefinder cameras are notoriously imprecise in framing and less expensive SLR's have viewfinders which don't show the whole image and so those images often need cropping.

So, I would argue that reframing (cropping both the vertical and horizontal edges of the image) is not only common, it's frequently justified.

But what if it isn't. What if the photographer got a little careless in the shoot - but later under the enlarger or on screen, he sees that an image which in whole is poor, when cropped radically becomes wonderful - it does happen. Are we to throw out such images because the photographer broke a rule? Of course not. So what are the consequences - well, the obvious one is that since the photographer is now relying on a smaller piece of film or fewer pixels, he simply may not be able to make such big prints. This isn't exactly a crime. Sure we all like to see just how big we can make images, but a 5X5 image in the centre of an 8.5X11 sheet of paper can be easily held and admired and may be exquisite.

I suspect that all of us have taken a mediocre image and tried to improve it with cropping, getting smaller and smaller and never finding a strong image - each time you remove a distracting element, you also throw out something worth while and the end result is no picture worth having at any crop. But just because it doesn't work most of the time, doesn't mean we should sneer when occasionally it does. In this case, 'the end justifies the scissors'.