Greg S wrote:<snip>With cropping what are the rules if any? I have been cropping my images to my common print sizes.<snip>
Cropping is a vexed issue for which there are some rules, but like all rules they are best used as guidelines rather than being treated as cast in concrete. My view is go with your gut. If it looks right to you with a certain crop then chances are this will appeal to others.
The real purpose of cropping is to maximise the impact of your image by enhancing the composition. Ideally you do this when you take the picture, but that's not always possible. Sticking to the exact size of your prints is a reasonable starting point, but can lead to less than stellar results in some cases.
You'll hear talk of things like the rule of thirds and use of leading lines and the like (a good read on this is
here), but at the end of day these are just guidelines. On that same site is this wonderful quote from the renowned photoghrapher Ansel Adams which summarises this nicely:
There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs
I'd also suggest you look at the excellent tutorials on various topics on this site. These are on the front page below the list of who is online. It would also be a good idea to have a browse through
Important links thread.
So far as my cropping suggestion here. The reason I suggested this was to remove the dead space above the train to focus us more strongly on the 4801 and the bottom crop was to achieve this too, but also to give the result of a more rectangular image. Good thing is this also ends up close to a standard print size!
Posted: Mon Oct 03, 2005 10:42 am
Bob.
