RE: [Leica] Cropping and the whole damn thing [was: Digital cropp ing]

[Guy Bennett <gbennett@lainet.com>]

Guy wrote:

>>>The refusal to crop a picture - even if that means improving the shot -
>suggests that the most significant thing about photography is the
>photographer's ability to get the shot; [the resulting photograph is
>secondary].<<

Dave responded:

>Absolutely!  Who does the photographer think he or she is, after all? That
>person's just pointing the camera and pressing the shutter. It's up the
>editor or the art director to make the real photograph.


Dave: What have art directors and editors got to do with it? We're talking
about photographers and their use (or non-use) of cropping.


>>>To the non-croppers I ask: do you refuse to revise something you've
>written, sticking religiously to the first draft?<<
>
>That's should be my goal -- concise and clear writing. Remember, we're not
>talking about recomposing. Cropping's only analogous to editing out
>meaningless prose.


Your goal is admirable, but I disagree with your definition of what it
means to revise: revising means a lot more than editing out. It's also a
question of rewriting, rephrasing, rethinking if necessary, the goal being
a piece of writing that's better than your first draft, ideally as good as
you can make it.


>>>Do you never season your food once it's cooked?<<
>
>Only if the cook missed the mark.


And what if the photographer missed the mark and cropping could fix it?
Should he or she do so, or just not print the neg, since it might show a
framing or composition error?


>>>To come back to photography: how do you feel about dodging, burning,
>split-filter printing, toning, bleaching? Are these also unacceptable
>manipulations of a negative?<<
>
>I can't dodge, burn, split-filter, tone or bleach in the viewfinder. But I
>should be able to frame the image.
>
>Dave

But you can dodge, burn, split-filter print, tone and bleach in the
darkroom, just like cropping, though all of these techniques mark a
departure from the image as the photographer created it.

I come back to the question I asked a couple of days ago: what if you
created a potentially great shot, that could be made better if it were
cropped - would you not crop it out of principle or would you do so to get
the print?

What about dodging, burning, toning, bleaching, etc.?

Guy