Truth and Beauty

chuckles

chuckles

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Barry
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Well, I've started this thread to remove the debate away from Colin's (Hackers) Dressage shot... interesting in it's own right.

Sean_mcr has quoted Bresson as having a very valid argument about cropping - or, more to the point, NOT cropping. To such an extent Bresson had two (rubber?) stamps made Truth and Beauty, "Not to be used outside it's own context" - "do not crop". Whilst agreeing, intrinsically, cropping shouldn't have to be done if the shot was expedited thoughtfully and purposefully. It does leave to me conclude there will be a lot of perfectly good shots lost to posterity if we all adopt this basic premise....

Take, for example, a shot Marianne took this morning.... first the whole frame...

gate_uned.jpg


The reason she took it was to illustrate something in a blog she is compiling. Completley meaningless outside it's own context and, possibly, a very weak shot. So, it's the TRUTH

However, she reworked this image (for other reasons outside the scope of this discussion) to such an extent that the crop, IMHO, crafted this basic shot into an artform, or, at least, a piece of Art. Beauty

gate.jpg


My question is, what would have occurred if Bresson had taken the stroll with us this morning. The only way he would have got the shot (Beauty) was if he had a Hasselblad X-pan. Damn, they can't make them any more because of lead in solder...... (another discussion please).

BTW - I'm not denying anyone the right or need to take photographs or pursue art in any form whatsoever. But, I'll defend my (and others') right to discuss and find a reason as to why artists/photographers work they way they do...

Thoughts? Ladies and Gentlemen.......
 
ooh I love it when you're masterful...I took the image in his signature too ;)
 
I've got absolutely no problems whatsoever with cropping. Sometimes it's quite possible that you took the shot with a view to cropping anyway, simply because you couldn't get any closer. I wouldn't need that justification anyway, if I thought cropping improved the picture I'd crop it. :D

As many pictures were cropped on enlarger baseboards as are now cropped in Photoshop, so cropping isn't something new. Good luck to the purists who think what you see in the viewfinder should be WYSIWYG, they're entitled to their viewpoint and to take their shots how they want as long as they don't get all lofty and airy about it. ;)

It seems very odd to me that at a time when editing allows us the greatest control over our images, people would want to deny themselves what is after all, just another option. :shrug:
 
I think there's a strong argument for both keeping the aspect ratio of an uncropped image and cropping ;)
 
I'm firmly in the cropping camp as well. As Barry said an X-pan camera could have been used to take the original shot so would that have then become Truth, if so, it would only be because of the camera format which is not a true representation of what we see. How about some of the large format cameras which produce a different size negative, maybe they look down their noses at the more conventional sizes.

To carry the arguement further do the 'purists' only use a 50mm lens (on 35mm format) or do they crop with a telephoto lens, or open up the perspective with a wide angle lens.

This row will rumble on for as long as people are taking photographs, always good for a debate though!
 
Hacker said:
To carry the arguement further do the 'purists' only use a 50mm lens (on 35mm format)
Click to expand...
....or large format glass plate for that matter ;)
 
I think I crop all my pictures.
 
The thing is if Bresson would have took a stroll with you he'd not have shot that, he shot in an environment that he understood completely

He'd not have actually even took a shot that he could not capture at that moment as he wanted it.

I am of the opinion, that to crop something by 30% 50% is a salvage exercise. That's way off surley from what was seen at the scene, it's like making the most of a bad shot
 
Hacker, it was about capturing the shot in the frame, 35mm aspect ratio is 3.2 as are all canon Dslrs, as are almost all dslrs.

So the fundamental point is, utilising the frame to capture the image.

I'l quote Notable war photographer, Don McCullin once more, to explain that it's not about lenses or what mm, it's about capturing the moment in camera.

"I think I speak for every photographer and especially Magnum photographers, when I say that Henri really introduced the concept of perfect composition into our thinking. He was the first to teach us to compose within the specific shape of the frame and to utilize the very nature of that camera and format."

I'm not telling anybody not to crop their images, nor do i expect them to defend it like i have to defend my point of view now, which i actual enjoy doing


But anybody that takes a shot, views it and realises that they have 20% 30% 50% of the photo wrong, i don't know how they did not realises that at the time

I'm not asking anybody not to crop images, i did not say i did not enjoy cropped images. I see some real butchery i have to say but that's more in forums then in print.

I think truth and beauty can come together in one instant, it's not a bad thing to aspire to.

I do pretty much agree with what Mike Johnston says here. http://www.luminous-landscape.com/columns/sm-02-10-27.shtml

"One evening on the beach near Galway I overheard an American couple evaluating their vacation. "The problem I'm having," the woman said at one point, "is that Ireland doesn¹t look quite enough like pictures of Ireland."

"I thought it was amusing that she didn't phrase that the other way around"


Peace guys peace, it's not an attack;)
 
Sean_Mcr said:
I am of the opinion, that to crop something by 30% 50% is a salvage exercise. That's way off surley from what was seen at the scene, it's like making the most of a bad shot
Click to expand...

Now that's interesting, it's almost advocating that you shouldn't walk further from or closer to the subject to aid composition.

And don't call me Surley :lol:
 
dod said:
Now that's interesting, it's almost advocating that you shouldn't walk further from or closer to the subject to aid composition.
Click to expand...

I took Sean to mean that a shot should always be composed in the view finder - and that you should have a vision of what you want to capture before you press the shutter, as opposed to trimming it to work after the exercise.
:shrug:

LOL at Surely;)
 
No Dod, i'm a prime shooter i always use my feet;)

I'm talking about your vision at the scene, what you want to capture. To take a shot, get home and realise that 30% of what you captured is a waste, simply baffles me. What were they looking at?

I got in to a private convo with a guy on FM has some real talent one of the regs that people their rate. Happened to mention that i did not rate the 16-35 he owned, i owned one for a short time. He said i know there we're some issues with many copies, but that i should use on on 5D

Now the reason why, was because he could crop 40% of in image to make a wide shot in to a portrait shot if he needed to

He's a people shooter like me, and shooting people is my strength, that's what im best at. A 16-35 on any camera will never be a portrait lens. Cropping in PS is simply digital zoom lets face it.

I heard a comment somewhere, i can't recall. But it was buying a camera with more MP so they could crop. The notion of owning more MP so you can lose some is not something i go along with, fine if others want to do that. But i don't

Not cropping my images, has led me to cross streets, climb fences, turn corners and i've often then discovered something new. Which is also the reason i use primes, but that's another debate for another day

Not cropping makes me slow down, keeps me thinking, keeps me in the scene. I just have much more chance of getting what i want in the field then i do sat at a PC.

Sure i miss, sure i get home and the shots just not right, but it's never that far wrong that 30% ect needs to go

Bresson did not publish every shot he took, just simply the one's he had faith in. He did not get it right every time, if he didn't he just let it go. That's the way most of the magnum shooters are.

Everybody gets inspired by something or somebody. I'm not asking other to be inspired by the same things that inspires me

.............
And don't call me Surley

Haha, nice one:)
 
I myself try to compose for the whole frame 99% of the time.

On occasions, when I don't have the option to move to get the correct composition, I will take the best shot possible enabling minimal crop.

This can sometimes be difficult when using the 800mm, especially when I
don't have room to move to get rid of distractions from the frame, and the 400 is too short to get the desired shot I'm after.

Its also awkward when i do move away from the subjects using the 800, as other photogs see this as a way to get a better vantage point and stand in my view/frame (I do manage to pursaude them to move though ;)).

A good excercise for us all, would be to shoot with say a 50mm lens for the day,
and see how we get on.
 
If I might stick my ore in here:

Being fairly new to digital photography and certainly to the likes of photoshop, I see a number of threads regarding the 'altering' of images by either cropping, colour balance, exposure tweaking etc. All seem to point to the direction of is this photography or something else. Yet, going back several decades when I was into B&W film, much the same was done but with the use of a Durst enlarger to adjust the size or crop of the image. Many debates were had at the local photographic society as to the use of differing papers and chemical brews to alter the final print. Hours were spent making cardboard masks to expose multiple images onto one sheet.

I suppose what I might be trying to say is that over the decades nothing has changed. There will always be those that see a photograph as exactly what the camera produces, and then again those that will see it as only a part of the process to creating an image :thinking:

Think I'd better go and have a tablet :)
 
phew, I can see both sides of this argument...all I know is that as I have progressed with my photography, I tend to fill my frame with a shot more often than not..only slight cropping if necessary to make it please my eye..I say, live and let live, life's too short to get het up over a bit of digital cropping here and there ;)
 
I actually think the first shot is the best of the two Marianne, but i am a person that belives that you stand by your image. If you prefer it cropped, then you've got to crop it, and you got to then stand by it, it's your image.

I'm just defending my way of shooting, im not putting down yours:)
 
Is everbody missing the point? Why is there a five bar gate, a kissing gate and yet ..... you can just walk round the side :lol:

Interesting debate and one that will roll on I feel....
 
Lol crop or no crop nobody spotted it. You know they used to teach cops in italy about the hidden messages in paintings as they really felt it would help them at crime scenes. I'm not sure people actually do take enough time to read photos, which is actually quite a flaw, but then we all interpret things different ways i guess

I spent the first ten years of my life in rural Ireland, i tell you'd get a mad farmer that would think that the tree on the right could stop a car spoiling his field, but forget about the gate being able to be opened lol
 
Wasn't there to trick anybody. It was one of those things I noticed after it got posted. My fault really, not best at thinking about what I'm gonna say before I type it! I hate this internet thingy sometimes. :(
 
We crop with our eyes all the time, by which I mean when you look in a shop window you don't just look at everything all at once, you selectively 'zone in' on one smaller area at a time. When you look at a view in real life your eye picks out the interesting bits ( e.g. the way the light plays on a hill). All you are doing when you crop an image is telling people 'this bit is what interested me' It's 'this bit' I was photographing, the fact that the camera lens took in more than that is coincidental and of no importance. I could have gone closer, used a different lens but I didn't so here's the crop, accept it!

I think the hardest thing for a photographer (at least for me) to do is to look at the whole picture, to not zone in, take in a whole scene and make it work as an image. The fact that we can now relatively easily doctor an image to remove e.g. unsightly overhead wires is just progress, 100 years ago there were fewer overhead wires to worry about but things change so our methods change too.
 
One of the reasons why Bresson is so admired, was because he could just pluck a moment out of the air, in one instance capturing it perfectly in the frame. Imposing his vision upon the scene that laid before him with mm second timing. There is real artistry to that, he treated the frame like a canvas in many ways.

Manipulation is nothing new, it's always been possible to manipulate photographs, which is demonstrated here.

http://www.talkphotography.co.uk/forums/showpost.php?p=122061&postcount=34

Bresson manipulated with his eye

I'm not against cropped photos at all. But i don't get people getting home and realizing that 30 50 % of a photo something they have created has to go.

Out of all the replies to a shot shared on forums, with out doubt cropping is the most likely reply. I think that's a shame in some ways

But i do enjoy cropped images, Bresson is not actually my fav photographer, he's a man i admire i love his work. But my favourite photographer is Diane Arbus, who did crop her images

So i'm not against cropping, i'm against the idea of sanitising or salvaging a photograph.
 
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