To Crop or not to Crop, that is the question…

 

Going back to basics and that perennial chestnut of whether to crop or not to crop, that is the question. 

Like every medium, photography suffers from a series of unwritten rules and set beliefs which underpin the art of taking a picture. Stray away from these and purists will  dismiss the image and the photographer as either irrelevant or not a serious photographer.  

But in an age where every image appears to have been manipulated to a pixel of its life, it does seem somewhat outdated and even trite to be holding to such beliefs. None more so than the issue of cropping. ‘You must always crop in the viewfinder’ is the mantra decried by some ardent followers of the dark arts.  

This will often be followed with the ubiquitous example of Henri Cartier Bresson, who famously said; ‘if you have to crop, move closer’…. or words to that effect.  That’s fine, except, one of his most celebrated images of the man stepping over a puddle, was in fact cropped.  

Rumour has it – and there is an image which shows the original frame – that the photograph was taken through a gap in a wall and to the left of the image, a wall or plank of wood is clearly visible.  Yet, the final image we are all familiar with, has done away with the obstacle.  It was cropped out. So, if its good enough for Bresson….  

More recently, whilst watching a critique of interiors by a very popular ‘Youtube photographer’ who, it must be said and to his credit, was extraordinarily brave to have his work critiqued by a ‘professional’ architectural photographer, proclaimed: “I don’t crop”.  I had to laugh as the amount of ‘post’ he does on other images kind of negates this purist attitude.  

It also didn’t help his cause that his images were being torn to shreds by the professional photographer who suggested his photographs could do with some judicious cropping, which is why he is a professional and not someone who earns a living pretending to be one.  

If you need to crop then crop. When you view something through the viewfinder, you are already mentally and even physically, cropping the image within the camera. Your eye blocks out all the distractions and focuses on the subject to hand. Its only when you have the photograph on your monitor that you can study and focus on what is superfluous and what is essential to capture the subject matter.  

It can be that your lens was not long enough, or something had strayed into the frame that you hadn’t noticed at the time or even, it was not practical to get in closer. In Bresson’s days, cameras were still something of a novelty. the luxury of being able to move freely, unhindered, unmolested in order to capture the moment have sadly long gone. There cannot be many places left where people are not familiar with the photographic camera. 

So, if you have to crop, feel free.  Those who pretend to be purists following in the traditions of past masters are merely deluded, living in some fantasy world espousing nonsense purely for effect.

 

 

Raw vs Jpeg

This is an argument I have seen played out on many occasions between photographers, most recently on social media and in particular on my favourite new fix: YouTube, where there is no shortage of advice and opinions.

Two high profile ‘educators’ or vloggers, (not sure if they are working photographers or just YouTubers) publicly slugged it out via their video channels, each arguing the case for either format.  None of their arguments made much sense but that’s probably just as well. However, the fundamental point of which is better, completely missed the point.

Just like the cameras and lenses photographers choose to use for a specific job, so too can be said of which format a photographer should use be it RAW or Jpeg.  I would go further and to be fair, this point was made…sort of, a beginner would do well to learn as much as they can before shooting in RAW, for no other reason than there is a certain amount of post processing required to extrapolate what they have shot in-camera before they can use the image.

It stands to reason therefore, that a person just starting out in photography will have little if no experience on how to process a RAW file and would be better served shooting Jpegs until such time that they have gained the required level of skill to extract all the detail from a RAW file.

And to be honest, this is an area that I have yet to fully exploit as my skill level in post is pretty basic as I have never needed to use photoshop other than the basic tweaks and for captioning.

To this end, the only time anyone would readily choose to shoot Jpegs would be those working as a press photographer, where the single most critical aspect when on a job -apart from the obvious – is speed.  They do not have the luxury of trawling through hundreds of images converting RAW files into Jpegs before transmitting them to their respective publication or agency.

Of course speed is all relative. When I was working on assignments back in the day of film, speed could be a matter of hours or in some cases days. Naturally, this was before the age of the internet and lead times were much longer. You had time to return to your publication, pop into the darkroom, place your rolls into the drop tanks of developer and so on…

If further afield, you had the option of handing your undeveloped rolls of film to a courier who would then either jump onto a bike or in extreme cases if abroad, onto a flight back to base. 

Then we had portable scanners and wire transmitting equipment and things became a lot faster until we finally reached the point of rolling news and the internet and speed was down to a matter of minutes.

Today, everyone from fashion to landscape to wedding photographers and most probably everything in between, should be shooting in RAW to maximize the full potential of the image they have captured.  And despite what anyone says or tells you, maximize they will and do.

Post processing…how much is too much?

Just how much is too much when it comes to post processing images? It’s a question I have never had to think about before now.  Coming from a photo-journalistic background, we were never allowed to do anything more than boost contrast, lighten, darken and cropping.  Anything more than that and the industry would take a very dim view.

There have been a plethora of instances in the past where photographers have been severely reprimanded after it was discovered they had manipulated their images. in the most extreme cases, photographers have been sacked, their archive removed and their reputation left in tatters.

Some of the most respected names in the business have over recent years, been quizzed over the amount of post processing in a number of their most iconic images, all have flatly denied any wrongdoing but the suspicion remains.

Yet the question remains, when and where is it acceptable and how much is too much? Commercial photography, advertising, marketing, weddings and fashion etc, all undergo a varying degree of manipulation, sometimes to the consternation of the public.  Many a fashion photographer or moreover publication, has had its knuckles rapped with the overuse of ‘air-brushing’.  But the absolute no-go area is in the field of reportage and news photography, which includes sport, where anything more than the aforementioned basic adjustments is strictly taboo.

The grey area however, is something like landscape or travel photography.  Unlike news and reportage whose immediacy usually only requires jpegs, landscape and travel photography as well as commercial photography, will nearly always be shot in RAW, in fact, they should always be shot in RAW.  This by its very nature, requires a certain degree of post processing and that’s where we get into the grey area.

Most landscape/travel photographers, from what I have observed, will say something akin to keep it ‘natural’ looking, very little ‘post’ was used, but when techniques such as stacking and stitching are employed, it’s impossible to avoid the use of photoshop or its equivalent.  There have even been cases where wildlife photographers have used the technique of compositing, which in my mind is taking things too far.

I have long advocated to young aspiring photographers, one of the key ingredients to photography is not only what you can learn handling the camera, but what you must learn when it comes to post processing, especially these days.

Landscapes photographers will always argue; ‘it’s what Ansel Adams was doing in the darkroom’ only now we use computers.  There is an element of truth in what they say, but today, what can be achieved in post goes way beyond dodging and burning. What is disingenuous, is when you read or hear photographers claim there has been little work done in post, only to discover a mountain of tweaks and adjustments in Lightroom.

It seems there is almost an embarrassment in admitting to the amount of work that has been done in post and that reflects in the mumbled confession of most photographers when discussing their images.

So what you see online or in magazines has to be taken with a certain degree of salt and not everything is as what it appears. One could argue, indeed I often do, a mastering of post processing is probably more important than the mastering of the camera.