Why Not CROPPING Enough HURTS Your Photos

🌟QUICK QUESTION: Do you crop most photos?

Interesting thoughts but for me if you over-crop an original landscape photo it becomes too claustrophobic which changes the intended perspective of space and tranquillity....

Love the content this week. One suggestion might be that you mention the original photographers of those images that you shared today. It might help move traffic to their social media sites.

This a great and often overlooked tool to use. I would rather start with a larger photo and then crop it in post vs trying to get the perfect framed photo when shooting. So many times I have tried to get the correct framing only to look at the photo later and see that it does not flow well because it was too narrow or tight. Cropping in post is an excellent, non destructive way to adjust a photo later.

Great topic Mark. Cropping is a big part of my process. I’ll try several crops, let them sit, and then return sometime later to see what appeals most to fresh eyes. “Life in the Frame”, what to leave in, what to leave out.

This is an extremely beneficial video. It reminded me of things I had forgotten. But, I think in the third photo, about 6 minutes in, I will disagree with your conclusion. It's important to have references that the eye can see to establish what is in the photo. The way you cropped it confused my eye into asking: "What is it?" All the other photos, including your photos gave enough reference points so that the eye could tell what was in the photo. In number 3 it will take a bit of time for the eye to understand that it is a stream with a waterfall, or is an alien eating up the landscape? The photo needed to have a bit more reference to establish what we are actually seeing. All the other photos, I feel that you were right one with the crops. Again, a good video. Be safe.

I do crop most of my photos. When I started watching your video, I thought to myself, Mark, art is subjective. Then I I saw how you cropped those photos and went WOW! Great job, for me I am going back to do a bit more cropping on some photos.

What did I learn ? Yes cropping but you lock the aspect ratio. I have always cropped freeform but locking the. aspect ratio seems to work well. I'm going to try that. Thanks for that tip.

I find that when I take a photo I leave a little extra space around my composition so I almost always crop just a little bit. It also helps with having the little extra for fixing perspective and such.

Great video! Such an important topic and you touched on some very valid points and also showed when not to crop the empty space for the sake of flow. I loved the flowing stream example which looked like a good photo to begin with but with a simple crop it became great! Always love your videos and Ive learned a lot from you.

Mark, thank you for today's lecture. I shoot the season and today I went back through Winter and did cropping as you suggested, Wow what an improvement I saw, again thank you for this weeks episode, I look forward to next week's for future improvements

Best crop tutorial I've see,....outstanding Mark!!

Things to ponder while looking at my photos.

Thanks for the input. You showed ways to crop without losing that beautiful picture even more beautiful!

This was helpful, thank you, I do crop fairly often but this was helpful and gave me lots to think about

Great video. I like the guided questions to help think about cropping. Might be a good exercise to review some of my older work to see if I can improve any of those.

Thanks, Mark. I totally agree about the benefits of cropping and do not relate to those who say the framing should be set in stone at the time of capture. Please share any advice you have when it comes to cropping wildlife, in particular the balance for showing an animal it its environment or removing unnecessary elements to where you end up with a portrait.

Excellent topic, Mark, and well demonstrated! Cropping is an artform in itself. Sometimes I’ll spend more time working the crop than the edit.

Great video! I found the comments about a square crop especially helpful and I need to experiment more with that crop size.

Thanks Mark for this week's video, there is food for thought in here ! :) I like the way you present your opinions and your simple and honest manner to explain why doing things your way can be beneficial. It keeps me subscribed and waiting for the next video even when I disagree with something you said or suggested. As I said in your poll, I crop most of my shots, but the first immediate reason is the only lens I own, a Sigma 24-70mm. Not the best, by far, but the max I could afford. I usually crop to fit the ratio of screens my pics are gonna be displayed on (16/9, 16/10), zoom in when 70mm is not enough, or remove the softness of the edges when using the widest field of view. And I can't and won't deny the ocasional artistic crop. I have nothing against cropping really, because it can serve so many purposes, for the right reasons. One thing I utterly aggree with what you said is about the intent of the photographer : what he/she wants us to see. But we, as phtographers, may also have to take into account our audience expectations. I feel like cropping is getting more and more debatable, but it probably depends a lot on your audience. Mine (is very limited. And I mean very VERY limited because I'm just a random dude with a decent camera) is getting tired of Instagram and the infinite scroll of perfect shots. They still seek beauty and awesomeness, but they want something a bit less crafted, if that makes sense. Some of my friends are talking about fake pictures, which I disagree with (AI does this), and one described some of my pictures as "photorealist paintings". An opinion I tend to share. My camera is already cropping the scene by nature and technical limitation. So I try to balance my own "work", to bring the beauty forward but with a strong sense of reality, randomness and imperfection. I have absolutely no way to verify the reality of this shift. I would gladly appreciate any comment on this from you Mark, and you guys if you somehow managed to read through this painfully translated comment !! Cheers