Properly cropping an image is essential to making a great photo. It’s important to know what your subject is and not let anything else compete with it. Of course, just like most things in photography what actually looks better can be relative. But here are some images that you will hopefully agree with how I cropped them. The images on the left are before and the cropped is on the right.
The point of this image is the feather eyelashes. The before picture looks like she was doing a sit up in the air. But I wanted her hand up. By getting closer in, the main focus becomes the eyelashes and not you wondering why she’s doing air sit ups.
Here, the center of the propeller is almost as big of her head. I loved her arms up (apparently there was a theme with this shoot) and didn’t want to crop them out. But at least cropping in closer you see her, not the airplane. Yes, it’s still there, but it’s not as distracting.
The main issue with this is her head is dead centered-not usually a good idea. Cropping in just enough to throw her off center makes the image a little more compelling and puts the focus on her.
These are extreme examples of cropping. But I did that on purpose. Photography is like driving. Little adjustments go a long way!
