Dead Space Crop

[WooD]

I've never cropped an image where the dead space was on the right. If I'd have cropped it to the left, she would have been looking out of the frame.

Critique on crop, and what ever.

[CiiVii]

I think the crop is just right: her shoulders gesture upward, her eyes go to the right and the negative space is an equal reflection of the space the model takes up. The only think I don't like (and the gentlemen might disagree) is that it looks like she's naked and it's a little uncomfortable.

[LoveDSLR]

My two cents.

I thought of it as a Gatefold Spread photo and came up with the first two crops. The last one is just the Golden Spiral crop.

[WooD]

Originally Posted by CiiVii

I think the crop is just right: her shoulders gesture upward, her eyes go to the right and the negative space is an equal reflection of the space the model takes up. The only think I don't like (and the gentlemen might disagree) is that it looks like she's naked and it's a little uncomfortable.

I cropped that part out too.


LoveDSLR, never heard of a Golden Spiral crop before.

[wulf]

As far as clothing goes, it is one of those "you'll never know" crops. I think the space works though but the positioning of the eyes is critical. In this case her gaze at least reaches the centre line - I imagine she had her eye on the camera - and that cross to the right of the frame ties her into the negative space, creating balance. Were she looking straight out or gazing out of the left of the frame the effect would be very different and perhaps not so effective (certainly for a sense of engagement).

Wulf

[kencaleno]

Original is unbalanced - (left heavy) best to crop square, (as below) or add some canvas area to left of frame,so she looks into image,instead of out of it. Ken

[Swisstony10]

I agree with Wulf - it's a "you'll never know" crop, and her facial expression says to me that she knows we don't know, she knows we might be wondering, and she's taking some cheeky delight in the uncertainty.

I don't think that the left-heavy nature of the crop is necessarily a bad thing, although I do think that LoveDSLR totally nails it with the golden spiral..

Russ.

[mandyatm]

I was going to suggest a square crop. I think since she is looking towards the camera that you can almost get away with the original crop, and maybe that is good. It does seem to left heavy to me too...great lighting though.

[Benji]

Musta missed this one! There are some excellent critiques above, but I want to add my little .0000002 cents worth.

The focus, white balance and lighting are good (She needed some powder to kill the shine of her skin however.) EXCELLENT handling of the background. White adds a sense of purity to an image.

The first thing I noticed is that she hunched her shoulders up. People do this when they are under pressure or feel uneasy. I've noticed this even when they are clothed. If she is nude it only adds to her general uneasiness and it will show in little ways in the image. (This is true unless she has posed nude numerous times and is now used to it.)

The square to the camera pose works sometimes, but the head and eye position must be "right" for the square on pose. IMHO it didn't here because of the unusual head tilt, rather strange eye direction and low camera position.

This may sound harsh but this is the way I see it.

Benji

[WooD]

Thank You.

This was her first ever nude shoot, and she was nervous. Lucky for me when she's nervous she acts silly, and moves a lot instead of freezing up.

I got some great facial expressions out of her, but had to keep reminding her where the main light was. It was almost impossible to keep the hair light where I wanted it. In this image I thought it was too high on her head.