Defense of Framing wider and cropping later on a 21" LCD with a glass of Bordeaux!
Thank you for your kind words toward my work Asher, but let me disagree with you!
Wether the photographer is a pro or a beginner, doesn't change anything about framing, imho.
Framing (large or close) is one of the main important thing in photography.
One have to know what one wants to include or exclude in/of the frame. Because this is the PHOTOGRAPHER's vision.
The vision is supposed to exist before the shot is done, otherwise it becomes an interpretation…
Nicolas,
You just have no idea how talented you are! It's like a concert cellist telling a student to play off by heart when they can hardly read the music or get the bow position right. Rachel has a particular problem with landscapes.
She's good at portraits. For that, maybe because
she understands people, she does almost instinctively well. For landscape and these school kids, however, she simply has not the vision yet. You, when you look at the sea, you know the water, clouds and birds like a mother knows her own child.
Other people are not in your class!
A common reason for an apparent poor design of picture is not lack of vision. The position and angle are often correct, just that the crop is too tight and things are missed
accidentally.
Rachel does not "know" the patterns holding the duck in the pond and the reeds and grass like you know your architecture and seascapes and plants with shadows. Who else has studied so much the very last rays of sunlight on silver blue water, painting in gold, with wild rough "Van Gogh" brush strokes on the sparkling waves?
For you and other expert photographers who have put in their labor for so many years, it's easy!
- You have your vision before you shoot and then
- You execute it.
With large format view 4x5 and 8x10 cameras, everything was so slow that the photographer always developed a vision before he/she was able to make a good processing of the film.
Today, however, with Rachel's Nikon, almost all the time the picture should come out well. So she, like most all others, has missed the slow apprenticeship that photographers had, as an assistant to a pro. Composition of nature is
not straightforward. If one's hands shake and eyesight is not perfect then we can miss the head of the egret! So by shooting
wider, then later, sitting by the 21 inch LCD screen, one can fine adjust the borders.
- Yes one has a vision
- but you haven't cut of the wheels of a car or the top of a mountain by accident.
When I photograph in studio lit settings or certain architectural street shots, these are
exactly framed. I often have a drawing to follow! However, as you know, in the street, I treat my viewfinder with disrespect and just aim the camera from my hip and fire as I pass. There's room for work in all these ways.
The only thing that counts to me is "Does the picture have any power over me to cause me to return to it and for me to value it.
- The picture works or not for the purpose intended.
- The more important the purpose, the better it is to frame well at the time.
- For the less skilled, getting the fleeting subject is more important than the rules of framing!
- The way to be certain is to frame wide
- Later, without shaking hands one can crop better!
- A big screen is kind to those with lesser eyesight and body reflexes.
- Now there's time to remove the excess. time to remove the excess.
Now if you cannot frame well, forget about being a wedding photographer since the event is only happening once. Still, one might want to photograph a child, right now. The kids move. Things change.
Nicolas, just allow this, when I am shooting on the fly, or for someone else as in Rachel’s case, where who has not as yet mastered framing, where shot after shot has parts cut off, if one
must have a picture of a grandchild and
that moment will be lost, framing wide is the
only way to go!
Otherwise, your approach is to be admired and a good working habit of being able to think about what will be in the final print and frame it perfectly!
Asher
