DPS Member Survey: Composition vs "Croposition"

[NetG]

I definitely have to do croposition, but without composition beforehand it won't help me any.

In the last year and a half I've taken approximately 15,000 photos, with 13,000-ish usually at ISO 800 or higher and aperture as wide open as possible. (Better with the dSLR than the old point and shoot, which was about 10,000 of those!) With the point and shoot flexibility I would compose fully on camera most of the time. But with the dSLR, I'm generally using a fixed focal lenth f/1.8 lens, in a crowd - so I can't move my feet to compose. It's very important I line up musicians and instruments as I want, etc., and I get the points of interest away from edges to ensure they are clear and the right color, etc., I want before I do croposition. I feel like - I have 15MP for a reason. It enables me to do much, much more than I could with my point and shoot without question. But it's just a tool and that composition which lets me crop is very important to it!

[TerryMC]

Originally Posted by zona5101

Back in the day, I cropped or adjusted my speed weasel under the enlarger all the time. Same-o only my fingers don't smell like fixer. (i miss that sniff, sniff, tear)

+1

The only thing I hated the most was with the early chemicals for color prints. Same experience with the first color printer.

[Chiwalatta]

I agree, that second shot is excellent, super sharp!

[mpascal]

Hi Jim, cropping cannot be considered cheating, if the masters of the past had the ability, they would have been cropping too. What we should admire is the time taken to frame and compose the old photos that are now masterpieces, taken with equipment whose features are nothing compared to what is available today. But we live in faster times, the best equipment is readily available to most people's budgets, there is no need to compose perfectly in each shot. We all need to just know the basics and how to use them in most instances, and well the computer does the rest according to our imagination.
Who knows how pictures will be taken in fifty years time.

Michael

[Mocha]

Art is art, whether you use technology or keep it "pure". The end result is a beautiful piece of artwork. Why not use the technology available to get the end results you are trying to achieve?

[beachcomber]

Cropositioning has my vote

Cheating would be claiming credit for that which was not your own.
Cropositioning is a skill.
A skill that enhances that which was good to start with, and makes it different and hopefully better, the same as photo edit software does

Good pictures/post and question Jim. I was going to call you an innovatrix but unfortunately that title has already been discovered, ah well, back to the scrabble board

[plangereis]

Originally Posted by beachcomber

Cropositioning has my vote

Cheating would be claiming credit for that which was not your own.
Cropositioning is a skill.
A skill that enhances that which was good to start with, and makes it different and hopefully better, the same as photo edit software does

Good pictures/post and question Jim. I was going to call you an innovatrix but unfortunately that title has already been discovered, ah well, back to the scrabble board

Innovatrix...Nice one, Steve! I agree that this is a great post. It makes you think, and question your philosophy about photography.

[SoxAddict]

"One man's meat is another man's poison".

Like you & most others, I'm all for getting the best composition at the scene with the camera, but the beauty of digital is that it allows us to create things that maybe weren't possible at the scene because of equipment restrictions etc.

I agree with cph's comment & thoughts, but I'd like to play devil's advocate - lazy photographers will always be lazy! And there's nothing wrong with that - the aim is that we all have fun with our little toys, no matter how we create an image.

The great thing about photography is that like with all other arts, there's something for everyone in it. There's no single "right" & really, no wrongs either - if one person adores what they create, & how they create it, then who are we to argue.

I'm hoping for "Jim's Photography Dictionary" to be in bookstores soon too.......Croposition - love it!

[CobraNutt]

Hey Jim!! That's cheating!!! (But I like it!)

As a relative noob to hi-res, uber-Megapixel cameras and photography in general, I have to say that while "croposition" may stray away from the "true art" of photography that some are familiar with...only a purist would have issue with it. Technology has changed a lot of things. Adapting and using it simply makes it more accessible and fun for more people. Great photographers will still work hard to get the best composition and framing captured in the raw image. The "art" isn't dead or dying, it's just evolving.

As a fellow car guy, you'll probably get this analogy...it's like the difference between me owning an original '65 AC Cobra worth $3M versus owning a replica that only cost me $50k to build. They're both awesome machines, they both perform extremely well, and typically only a purist (dare I say, "Elitist") would even know or care about the difference. Some complain and say the replica isn't "real." Well...I can touch it and drive it....it's plenty real.

Croposition is still "real" photography! That's my $0.02.

[martha36]

I don't think it's cheating when other people do it, but it rarely occurs to me to do serious cropping in PP. When it does, I worry about losing some image quality, especially if I'm cropping in on something really tight. I would be much more inclined to go out and try to reshoot the photo than crop it in PP - although that's not always possible. But, I think some of my anti-PP sentiments are because my tendencies are more toward a photojournalistic approach (I do work at a newspaper, after all). And preserving the integrity of the original is crucial in photojournalism. Otherwise it becomes a false image. But, really, from an artistic perspective, having PP tools like that is no different than darkroom manipulation when you think about it. It's just more advanced. But the approach is the same.