Crop This Photo

480sparky · Nov 23, 2012

I'm not a portrait photographer, but this image caught my eye this morning while editing the snapshots I took yesterday at Thanksgiving.

I'd like to crop it, but I just can't seem to 'get it right'. I've even tried to rotate it some, but I can't get it there.

This was a flash mis-fire, and she ended up with what I think is a wonderful lighting from a patio door. I darkened the shadows, cloned out the busy background and the sparkles on her dress, and I'm left with this. I know it's OOF, but her mother loves the shot.

So if'n you're willing, give it a try. TIA!

Solidjake · Nov 23, 2012

Here's my stab at it. I just fixed the contrast a bit, but for the cropping I set it for her to be on the left side of the frame.

KmH · Nov 23, 2012

How about a 3:4 crop -

pixmedic · Nov 23, 2012

480sparky said:
I'm not a portrait photographer, but this image caught my eye this morning while editing the snapshots I took yesterday at Thanksgiving.

I'd like to crop it, but I just can't seem to 'get it right'. I've even tried to rotate it some, but I can't get it there.

This was a flash mis-fire, and she ended up with what I think is a wonderful lighting from a patio door. I darkened the shadows, cloned out the busy background and the sparkles on her dress, and I'm left with this. I know it's OOF, but her mother loves the shot.

So if'n you're willing, give it a try. TIA!

TIA?!? Why would you want us to have a transient ischemic attack for cropping your photo? Harsh man.. Harsh.

EIngerson · Nov 23, 2012

Crop by Ingerson"PCD", on Flickr

480sparky · Nov 23, 2012

pixmedic said:
TIA?!? Why would you want us to have a transient ischemic attack for cropping your photo? Harsh man.. Harsh.

Because I'm referring to Telecommunications Industry of America instead.

TCampbell · Nov 23, 2012

I like Keith's crop.

BTW Sparky... GREAT shot. I find both "low key" and "high key" photography make great examples of how you can use lighting to suggest a feeling or emotion that wouldn't otherwise come out with more typical lighting.

The lighting creates an emotion of thoughtfulness or solitude -- and that really works best when you can see her eyes. That makes me want to crop-in for detail -- filling the frame a bit more. I also wanted to move the "highlighted" area of her face to center (left/right) and slightly above center (up/down). Pretty much exactly what Keith's crop did.

While we usually go after a "rule of thirds" placement for most environmental shots, part of the point of things like "rule of thirds" is that it plays with our brains. We naturally want things to be centered. When we look at someone in real life we don't look slightly left or right of them so that we get an artistic "rule of thirds" placement... we center them. In photographs, if the subject isn't centered it leads our eye movement by giving us an urge to sweep across the image. In this case, however, it's a low-key shot so there's nothing else to see -- everything else is black. I don't think you gain anything with "rule of thirds" in this particular shot, so I wouldn't try to crop for it.

480sparky · Nov 23, 2012

TCampbell said:
..........BTW Sparky... GREAT shot. I find both "low key" and "high key" photography make great examples of how you can use lighting to suggest a feeling or emotion that wouldn't otherwise come out with more typical lighting...........

Actually, this is a NO key lighting..... I usually bounce a shoe-mounted flash off the ceiling when taking candids. My batteries were dying, and my SB-600 hadn't recycled yet. So I ended up with a shot with nothing but the light coming in a nearby patio door.

I just moved on at the time, and 'discovered' the shot this morning while working with the images. Here's the original JPEG conversion: