When do you cut them off?

falcontertomt · Jan 30, 2014

It seems to me that there is a division when it comes to cropping out parts of a person in an image.

Example:

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/people-photography/350898-portraits-strangers.html In this thread nobody mentioned that the top of the head and chin were cut off.

http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/people-photography/350879-looking-improve-cc-please.html But here it was mentioned.

Is this artistic differences?
When is it appropriate to cut off parts?
Is it appropriate to cut off parts?

Designer · Jan 30, 2014

Yes, artistic differences. When I see a GOOD photograph, I seldom notice any compositional difficulties. If it's good, then it's good.

The "appropriateness" of cropping body parts will depend on the rest of the composition.

Yes, it might be "appropriate" at times, but the photographer needs to consider the entire composition.

TechChuck · Jan 30, 2014

When comparing the two examples provided, I find they are in two different leagues. In the first, the crop intensifies the image, draws more attention to the eyes. It is a bolder, grittier image compared to the ones of the girl. In those images, we expect normal, which means seeing her entire heard. Photography is art, and art is very subjunctive to the viewer's interpretation. I often hear "Learn the rules so you can break them" and that is art. That's my opinion; will be interesting to hear what others think.

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Big Mike · Jan 30, 2014

Firstly, we need to realize that this is art, not rocket science. There are all sorts of different opinions and really, nobody is wrong.

For me, it comes down to: Is it a good composition? Does the crop look or feel awkward?

For example, it's usually more acceptable to crop off parts of your subject, if you are close to filling the frame with them. Maybe if you're cropping in a balanced way.
But if you crop off a subject's feet, but have a lot of room above them in the photo, it looks like a mistake, rather than a conscious choice.

Also, there is an aspect of art, I can't remember the common term, but I'm thinking of something like 'implied completion'. The theory is that you don't have to completely show a shape in the work, if the shape is implied and can be inferred by the viewer. For example, a painting that shows a circle, but the edge of the circle is cropped on one or two sides by the edge of the canvas....the viewer can probably guess that it's a circle, even though the edge might not be in the image.
Apply that to a portrait, and you can get away without showing the top of someone's head, because the viewer can likely envision the person's whole head.

falcontertomt · Jan 30, 2014

Thanks for the input everyone!

Braineack · Jan 30, 2014

falcontertomt said:
http://www.thephotoforum.com/forum/people-photography/350898-portraits-strangers.html In this thread nobody mentioned that the top of the head and chin were cut off.

I wanted to.

I think it would have been stronger without at least the chin chopped. But when I looked at his full gallery there were plenty without chopped off heads, plus like Designer said, it was a good shot the overcame it, so I didn't bother mentioning it.

I used to crop a lot of shots like that, and have since moved away from the practice; you can always crop for effect/style/arbitrary later.

DiskoJoe · Jan 30, 2014

The 2nd kid was specifically looking for feedback. The other person was not and the shot was pretty good despite some flaws. I agree with exactly what Brianeack said.

PCimages · Jan 30, 2014

To show the whole head in the first shot would put his eyes closer to the center of the image, and that would look pretty odd.

weepete · Feb 2, 2014

For me cropped chins really annoy me, but I don't usually mind some of the top of the head chopped off. The difference in the two examples you posted if what the main focus of the image is. In the shot of the bloke the chin and top of the head don't add much to the shot, so it's no big deal loosing them.

Gavjenks · Feb 3, 2014

I don't like either of the examples in the links. The first link is awesome IN SPITE of its composition, but could have been better. It's an obviously vertical composition, with nothing interesting at all happening off to the sides. I'm all for putting vertical faces onto horizontal frames if there's some reason for it, some focal point to play against the face, but here, no. It distracts by feeling like a round peg in a square hole sort of thing.

Same for some of the photos of the girl, especially the middle top one. In the middle bottom one, you can see how the arm/hand could have successfully played off of the face to make a sensible horizontal composition, but by cutting half the hand off and showing almost no arm, they ruined their chances at pulling that off.

Also, cutting off a bit of forehead is IMO much more acceptable than cutting off a bit of chin. I'm not sure why. It might have to do with people wearing hats cutting off their foreheads all the time, but never the chin. Or that my attention goes between a person's eyes and their mouth (everyone looks at mouths a bit to help interpret speech), so i'm used to paying more attention to the lower half of the face?

My favorite compositionally of all these would have been the girl in the lower right, if they moved her a bit off center.