cropping for the picture

Sometimes with digital cameras, you have a photograph (like the little version alongside here) that is good enough but not what it could be. With today's options in photo programs, tools that used to be only for professional photographers are at our fingertips. An original photo is a rough draft. It takes editing to bring out all that is possible.

As I wanted to get up snow pictures quickly on my blog, I did end up using this version. Pleasing snapshot, but it kept bothering me for assorted reasons. It had good basic elements, but the woman was working against the composition. What is the subject? Adding a figure to any photograph adds interest but also complicates the composition. Her dynamics seemed to be taking my gaze out of the photo and away from the scenic interest. Like a sentence structure that isn't quite smooth, it was not all it had the potential to be. Often the answer to this is cropping, and it's easy to experiment with various crops on the computer.

Sometimes composition can be controlled through the camera; but in this case, I took the original with auto-timer from a hay bale, not a tripod. I couldn't control composition. I could only choose the general elements I wanted.

Incidentally, when I take such a picture, when I work with it later, the figure isn't me to me. It's just a figure that is supposed to accomplish something for the final product. Although I took several that day that were more flattering, I found this one more interesting. Even though it presented problems in the composition, I liked the figure's sense of being poised for motion (which given how the photo was taken by timer happened to be accurate also). I liked the darker figure and lighter background. I didn't like how she looked away from the snowy scene and at the camera. To me, it conflicted the photograph.

Cropping it this way or that, I tried to keep all the elements but work it down to one subject. With her body language and looking away, it didn't work no matter what I tried. Finally I decided this was two photographs fighting against each other.

In the first, the fence post thrusts strongly into the sky, taking the eye up and into the center of the composition. It holds the photo together. In the second, the woman is now the center of interest and instead of her pose leading to unrest, it creates a dynamic element of country woman and snow. I like how the barn wall works with her hair to carry the gaze through the photo but no longer with unrest, rather the kind of circle, you always want to have happen.

Finally for fun, here is one last adjustment possible with today's photo programs-- the same photo in black and white where, to me, it does work as a whole. I think black and white works partly because it brings out the design of the snowy tree branches behind the figure, tying the elements together. To stop the eye from wandering out of the picture where the roof was, I drew a small, black border, similarly to using a mat with a framed work.

When a person has the time, it is fun to play with a photo, experiment with its composition and create something new-- taking it beyond the casual snapshot.

(To fully view photos, click on to enlarge.)