Photography - Cropping and Framing
What to leave out, what to put in and where to put it.
Tip - One of the easiest
ways to improve your photography is with careful attention to framing.
Look into the corners of the viewfinder to see what is there. Do you need
all that background? Can you get closer to your subject or zoom in? Would
the picture look better as an upright or landscape?
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The most common mistake people make when taking pictures
is not filling the frame with the subject. If it's a photo
of granny waving from the doorstep, let's just see granny
and the door, not half the houses in the street with a small
granny shaped blob in the middle. I think the culprit for
this phenomenon is the focusing aid in the centre of the
viewfinder. Most cameras have some sort of circle or rectangle
etched onto the glass and we are inclined to think, in our
less thoughtful moments, that this is the whole picture
area. Take a moment to glance around the viewfinder to see
what you have got at the edges and especially in the corners.
Watch out for clutter in the background, that lamppost growing
out of granny's head. Make sure that everything in the viewfinder
is there because you want it to be.
Landscape or Portrait?
A lot of people never, ever turn their camera on it's side and
shoot an upright picture. Yes, it can be a little awkward to hold
until you get used to it but, what a difference it can make to the
picture. If you are taking a picture of one person then it is essential
to shoot upright, you waste so much of the picture area at the sides
if you don't. |
Close cropping for maximum effect |
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The picture on the left is a typical snapshot, two miles of coastline
with a pink blob in the middle. Turning the camera on its side and
moving in a little closer, as in the picture on the right, gives
us a much better picture of the girl and we can still see enough
background to get the message that we are on the beach.
For the sake of good layout on the page, I have made these two
pictures the same height. In fact they are the same size, if you
can imagine them in their original dimensions the girl is ten times
bigger in the photo on the right.
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Even when you are shooting landscapes, you will find that, sometimes,
the picture will look more dynamic with an upright frame.
Always think, with every picture you take, should this be an upright
or a horizontal view? Usually the answer is obvious and dictated by the
shape of the composition but sometimes, for instance when the composition
is square, the best choice is not obvious. In this case take two pictures,
one of each.
Can't I leave the cropping 'til later?
If you are printing your own pictures then you get a second chance to
get the cropping right but, don't rely on this to make up for sloppy camera
technique. If you crop your pictures afterwards in the computer or in
the darkroom, you are throwing away quality. You are wasting some of those
precious pixels that you paid so much for. What's the point in having
a camera with five million pixels if you are only going to use three million
of them?
Click here for an
example of tight cropping
For help and inspiration try
one of these great books
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