Sometimes i cut off foreheads.

[picklesalt]

I love taking portraits, but i have a bad habit of cutting off foreheads to get an up-close-and-personal shot. Attached is an example I took the other day with a friend's children. I feel like it works here, but people have called me out on other photos i've taken.. is this permitted in the "formal book of photography rules"? Do you guys ever do this? Does it work for you?

[picklesalt]

(Here is another example of my bad habit)

[grounded]

I too tend to crop to tight, but it sometimes pays off.

[sharissa.johnson]

I absolutely love the photo of the two children, and I don't think that it truly matters in such a great photo on whether or not the forehead is slightly cut off. I have the same habit as well :P and in some photos I do find that if the forehead wasn't cutoff it would have been better, but the only way to rreally find out is by trial and error :P

[ahickman]

How funny, I just posted a thread about this. I accidentally did this to my daughter's head on one of my favorite shots of her.

Here is my $0.02:

I think in this pic it is ok because my eye is drawn to the girls face and their hands. The boy is secondary. They are both adorable, but her smile is what makes you feel good when looking at this image.

I love the B&W effect for this image. Nice work

[sybren]

I also sometimes do this, for instance in this series of child Judokas:



I consciously chose to cut off part of their head, because I wanted their face to get some more space in the frame. After all, the prints were going to be put up on display on cupboards, tables and whatnot, so they'd better be as large as possible.

[cherrygirl]

I just want to say the photo of the children is great! Darling kiddos!

[irishmuth]

I'm a beginner, but I've seen quite a few comments that this can be effective (especially on kids) so long as you're not cutting off both the forehead and the chin. My $.02 is that it works on the first shot, but not the portrait of the young woman...the first one is full of life and it seems "acceptable" that the action would force you to cut off something whereas the posed picture makes me think that it was a mistake.