Teach me something - C&C please

f3nr15 wrote:

Midwest wrote:

WilbaW wrote:

If it were mine, I'd do something like this -

Wilba's crop

I cropped this on instinct, rather than by following any rules, by removing anything that didn't help to present the subject in a compelling way. It ended up pretty much square, coincidentally with the baby's "intimate triangle" (eye-eye-mouth) on an intersection of thirds, and the others eyes on the upper third. The dark hair forms a frame on the left and above, providing a visual balance to the angelic face, and the triangle formed by your wife's eyes, the girl's eyes, and the baby's face draws my attention to the tender connection between them. Lovely shot, thanks for sharing.

I agree, and it crossed my mind that there was some wasted area in the right side of the photo (in both its original and OP-cropped versions). This is the strongest composition, but my self I'd still let the sepia toning go.

Actually, I have to admit that I really like this crop as well. I think I've been trying too hard to stick to more traditional crop/photo sizes, but I guess its really about whatever optimizes the end result.

I do most of my cropping with the Canon Digital Photo Professional program which has a variety of aspect ratios for cropping as well as just 'free' rectangle option, and I think I've used most of the settings they offer. This crop is a good lesson and example of not wasting a lot of space in a photograph, whether it's too much sky or too much foreground or just too much spare area around the real subject. I like to crop because often I find a very good photo inside a merely good one. Cropping this one in this way made it really excellent.