Cropping

The red gate: My first of three photographs I selected for this cropping exercise is a picture I took during the winter in the snow. I thought it might draw the eyes along the wall next to the snow covered gardens. When cropping I found that a much tighter picture looked a lot better. The background was rather busy with too many bits of detail. This crop of the focal point of the picture, the gate and wall, make these stand out in the frame without all the background distraction. The yellow/green bush in the garden behind gives a subtle contrast whilst the reds in the gate and the wall now take centre stage in the shot.
 

 Outside Summerset House: I always like a landscape shot of buildings and this would always be my first reaction to take a picture in this manner. I cropped the photo to a portrait to accommodate the shape of the lamppost and kept the two domes within the frame so that they mirrored each other. The sky now appears brighter and with more contrast having been awarded a third of the frame. This is also reflected in the proportion of the buildings and the court yard which also both have approximately a third each. I like the bollard which I have left just off centre towards the foreground of the picture as this mark gives a reference to the death of frame.
 

London bike parking: I wanted to show the depth in the picture through the line of cycles with the background slightly out of focus. The strong shapes, circles and straight lines, were to become my focal point with mostly grey tones, a bit of blue and a very slight hint of red in two small spots in the background. I did not know how I was going to crop this picture at the start and concentrated on the items I didn’t want to keep. First thing to go was the people walking along the pavement then the bit of road to the left to make a square photo. This did not work as the black bollard now tight on the bottom left corner looked very odd and have to be removed. More cropping this time for a taller picture reflecting the shape of the bollard from the left of the photo now central and the frame a little wider than the width of the nearest front wheel.


This exercise has taught me that even a seemingly lost shot can become an interesting photograph with a bit of cropping in the right place. The bikes especially were nothing extraordinary which changed totally with a different crop. A little imagination can change an unbalanced photograph in to an interesting piece of art.