Simply by putting the word Crop in the title of this post, I increased my site traffic today by 20%! Cropping is a hot topic and why, because it is truly poorly understood. I’ve written about The Crop many times before but this is not a repeat of those. Cropping, be it in the viewfinder or in post, why? What makes cropping so powerful, so misunderstood and misused? In looking at a ton of images lately, when I make the comment that this or that element is distracting, 100% of the time the solution voiced back to me to solve this problem is, crop! But cropping is not a solution but rather, often becomes the problem. Like every single tool and technique in photography, there is a place when cropping should be used.
Is there one time cropping especially in post shouldn’t be used? IMHO ya, to make the subject size larger! Having the subject smacking the viewer right between the eyes is the goal. It’s how we tell it’s story. This necessity though doesn’t dictate the subject fill the frame. Rather, the subject can be the smallest element in the frame and still smack the viewer right between the eyes. What about when it’s not subject but an unwanted element? Well, crop is often the common answer. When you do that, aren’t you quite often throwing the baby out with the water? Ya, you crop out the unwanted element but what about the other elements that go with it? Aren’t they part of the story being randomly tossed for the sake of that one unwanted element? When you took that photo, the majority of the elements in the frame are important to you which why they are there. So why randomly throw them out later?
I prefer to do all my “cropping” in the viewfinder. I understand many love to do it post, and that’s just fine. But in either instance, what is the crop based on? That’s the disconnect I’m finding a lot this past month and that disconnect comes from what I just spoke about. I put up these two images I recently took on an Oregon beach and the coastal redwoods of California as an example. Shot with the D750 / 24-70AFS, the subject in both of these images are elements kissed by the light. So the subject in its most simplest terms is, light. I physically moved to arrange the elements as you see them here based on that subject, the subject I want to share with you. The subject is what YOU make it to be and the rest of the photo, the story YOU want to tell about your subject. When it comes down to the crop then, when to do it, how to do it and where to do it like everything else in photography comes down in answering the question, “What’s the subject?”