Composition and Cropping

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There are a lot of photography lessons on composition and you will find that not all photographers agree with the tradition of the two thirds rule.

Cropping is the art of removing extraneous areas of your photograph, usually round the edges.
It serves many purposes, creating a more pleasing image by adjusting the composition, or concentrating attention on part of the image, you can also change the proportions for specialised use such as advertising or simply to fit a photo frame.
Don't be afraid to crop, the purists say that cropping should be done in the camera at the time of shooting, that’s ideal, but not always possible unless you are using a tripod and have plenty of time to set up. It’s often advisable to take a wider shot so you can reposition the subject by cropping, especially if the camera is hand held

The photo below is well cropped but imagine that a friend asks for something a little less daring, the purist would say “my photograph should stay as it is”, I don't agree, as one photo can hide several others. It is however vital to keep good balance and composition in the cropping.

 

 

photo editing computer programs, many of which come with the camera, provide a cropping option. On some printers with a small LCD screen you can load and crop your pictures without using your computer.
Some programs enable cropping to circular or oval shapes and some to help you crop for CD or DVD labels.

Cropping can create the impression of a panoramic or wide view camera that will have a sophisticated optical design and produce a tremendous panoramic effect. However cropping to reduce the height of a normal or wide-angle image is an easy solution for an amateur on a budget.
Digital cameras often have a means to help you take shots capable of being stitched together on a computer to form a panorama.  
Remember that correction of colour, sharpening, and cropping, are the only photo adjustments acceptable in photojournalism.

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