Creative Cropping

I am busy taking pictures and have wanted to learn more about creative cropping for sometime now. I have some great articles that I am posting tidbits from. If I find a good site I will post it on the blog.


Here goes:

Cropping goes hand in hand with composition. If you have a great photograph and it is cropped poorly, this takes away from the composed photograph.

We hear the word composition all the time and many of you already know this. I will start with the basic rules of composition to get the best camera exposure:


Rule of thirds is very important. Experts tell us that we should never place our subject in the middle/center of the photograph. In general this is a good rule, but there are times when you can place subject in the middle. This holds true in some landscape pictures when we want our eye drawn to the subject matter in the background. In general, for good composition, use the rule of thirds. Imagine a tic-tac-toe grid over your image in the viewfinder. Place your subject wherever the lines intersect.

Place subject off-center: when you take a picture of your subject off-center, you are giving the viewer the opportunity to scan the picture for other interesting elements. When your subject is in the absolute center of the frame. the viewer gets stuck on the subject. I found this quite interesting and true. Take a look at your photos and pick out pictures that have the subject dead center and pictures that subject is away from the center. Surprising isn't it!




More to follow next week.
I would appreciate any comments you may have as I continue this series. If you have a question , I will do my best to answer it.
Edith