Cropping

I often think of cropping as a remedy for a badly constructed photograph; this exercise teaches that this is not a good strategy, and cropping should in fact be used to find different pictures within photographs already taken.

The first image to be treated, a shot of a lion/gargoyle type statue shot at Hampton Court, was taken with an unusual perspective (Dutch tilt) in an attempt to make the picture more dynamic, but also because I looked the combination of bright cloud juxtaposed with menacing cloud.  I also liked the inclusion of the flag adding a touch of movement and colour.

I then selected an area for cropping reducing the amount of menacing cloud thus removing the attention from the cloud and restoring some balance in the composition.

The final result is a square image that is more dynamic than the original.  The reduction of the cloud brings more attention to the statue, with enough cloud left to leave the impression of a storm closing in. In addition, the Dutch tilt works better in this case with the square format.

This image was further improved by processing into black and white, reducing the brightness and adding more contrast and sharpness.  Although the colour of the flag is lost, the overall result is pleasing and almost Gothic!

The second image selected for treatment was shot in the Oxo Tower restaurant on the occasion of a friend's hen party.  This image shows the hen holding up a heart-shaped gift.  Intended as a snapshot, the image has a lot of background detail.

The first crop was to exclude some of the background detail so that the focus was purely on the hen and her present. This brough the shape of the gift out more as it was not competing with other objects in the frame.

The final result is a pleasing and happy picture with balance between small objects (gift and lower hand) against the larger object (face and body).

I then saw the possibility for another picture within this image focussing purely on the heart and the lower hand.

The resulting image is really pleasing as it makes the hen's engagement ring stand out and balances the image with some sparkle at the bottom against the mass of sparkles at the top.

The image was then finally improved further with some processing to firstly turn the image into black and white and then invert colours; this makes the image look slightly abstract and could potentially be used for a greetings card!

My third image for the cropping treatment was also shot at Hampton Court.  A photo was taken of an archway with the interesting perspective of the walled path and centrally weighted composition.

The possibility for a picture within this image naturally lies in the archway.

I cropped the image tight excluding everything except the arch and what is within the arch.  Without the distraction of the walled pathway and the rest of the main building, this brings out the features within the arch and also the moss on the top of the arch.

I then processed the image further setting the sharpness to the maximum to enhance the brick features and make them look more textural, brought down the brightness slightly, enhanced the contrast to add greater depth behind the arch and set the image to sepia to make it look older.













This exercise has shown that although cropping can be a rescue strategy, it can also be used as a creative technique to find pictures that may not have been seen at the time of taking the photo.