TAOP Cropping.

Outline: Take three of your previously taken photos. Crop each image, detailing what you are cropping and the reasoning behind your choice.


For this exercise, I have used three images that I have taken randomly in the past.

This is a photograph taken at Caerphilly castle. It shows a portion of the castle and the moat, with a village far off in the distance and also some of the castle wall in the immediate foreground.

To tidy this image up I decided to crop a large portion of the image away from three of the sides. The crop will remove the castle wall in the foreground and also the village in the distance. I've chosen to do this purely to make the castle the main subject of the image.

I think this version is a lot less 'busy'. Now we see the castle with a slight reflection in the moat, with nothing else to take any of our focus.

I took this image on the river Ogmore. It has a riding school close by and on a lovely bank holiday Monday, after returning with its 'rider', this horse decided to take a dip in the river.

My choice behind this cropping was to eliminate the people in the background. I'm so glad I captured this moment and wanted the horse to be the only thing in this image. Also with the fact it was bank holiday, there were loads of people here but I thought that by removing the people, the photo would give the impression that it was a very peaceful and quiet moment.

I now get the impression that there was no one else around and the fact that this image was taken in black and white, I think, really adds to the overall effect of peace and tranquility.

This image was taken in Cardiff Bay for the 'Sequence of Composition' exercise.

In deciding how I wanted to crop this image, I thought of how I wanted the man in the image to be perceived. When I took the photo, I saw this man as a solitary walker. I wanted to emphasise this point in this exercise. By taking out the nearer people in the background, who are also looking in my direction, you get more of a feel that there are very few people around.

I think I achieved my aim in the cropping of this image. Now, the gentleman is still the main focus but I've taken away the distraction in the immediate background. Now we only have the 'tourists' in the background but we cant see their faces.

Conclusion:
I like how this exercise expanded my mind into making a better composition for my photos. I obviously had an idea of how I wanted the photo to look when I took it, but this exercise has shown that you can still expand on that original idea, even after the photograph has been taken. I still think that you need to 'find' your image while using the viewfinder of the camera, but it's good to know that if your idea didn't come out exactly as you planned it, you can then crop the image more to be able to create that original idea.