Remove Distractions–Increase Ambiguity

Normally we crop to eliminate distractions: getting rid of dark areas at the bottom, bright areas at the top, intrusions from the side and other in-image elements that deemphasize our primary subject.  Sometimes it isn’t about subject-its about setting. Cropping out distractions can help with ambiguity of place.

Case in point, this capture of a red-headed woodpecker at Big Woods State Park near Nerstrand, MN.  I had been trying to capture this bird for two seasons but it had eluded me. I had a client lined up for an image of this bird but needed a more natural looking setting.  The obvious roof-line, door and sign  give the bird a decidedly unnatural setting.  What can a crop do for us?

Cropping in tightly gives a certain ambiguity to the bird’s surrounding. Many of the tell-tales that reveal the bird is near to a building have been eliminated by the tight crop.  The prominent position of the subject and its relative size-to-frame have pushed the background back as well.  It is becoming that image my client wants. Breakup that remaining line behind the bird and we are ready for sale!

I guess it comes down to sense of place. The more place you eliminate through your crop, the less you sense its being there.

Rikk Flohr  © 2012

Monkey Business

A closer crop can change our perceptions about what is really going on in a picture and lead us to a new emotional connection.

First of all, apologies readers.  A recent trip to Costa Rica and a lack of internet interrupted my usual flow of articles. I am back and connected. It is time to rectify that lack!

Above is an uncropped image from the latest Costa Rica tour. It is a photo of a female Mantled Howler Monkey feeding in the dry forest  near the Nicaraguan border.  The image is framed pretty well in-camera and not a bad composition overall.  However, there is more to this story of an adult monkey feeding.  Cropping closer can give us a different perspective.

I cropped this image as I would for any of my general aesthetics. The goal was to make the subject larger in frame, clean up some edges and compose the image slightly more strongly. Something else is starting to emerge that wasn’t immediately evident in the original image.

Though I saw it at the time and exposed for it carefully you may not realize that this Howler Monkey is carrying a baby. A tighter crop suddenly brings the baby to our awareness.  The mom is maintained in her natural behavior but now the baby is starting to exhibit behavior for us as well.

Moving in tighter and going vertical makes the baby monkey much more obvious in frame.  Now, we can clearly see both the mom and the baby are feeding.  This has become a story about an intimate relationship between mother and child.

Apply a little crop rotation and moving in tighter and things change slightly.  The baby’s mouth is clearly latched on the mother’s nipple. His eyes are closed in slumber or mere contentment. The mother’s eyes are now revealed to be watching warily the photographer or, by extension,  the image’s viewer.  Are we now intruding on an intimate moment?

These revelations of our perception of the moment were not evident in the initial crops.  By coming in tightly and filling our frame with the story, we can drive emotional response from those who view our images.  We can go from “cool monkey shot” to “she isn’t very happy you are disturbing her baby’s breakfast”. That is a good place to go.  We have engaged our viewers by cropping tightly and driving them to the unperceived story. An emotional connection to the image becomes inevitable.

Look closely at your pictures and see what monkey business might be going on.

Rikk Flohr © 2011

Ultra-cropping

Sometimes we just know, in advance of taking the shot, that we are going to crop it to the max. Prepare for it.

I was shooting in support of the Presentation Summit in San Diego last week when I stumbled across a bird sanctuary on my hotel grounds.  The placement of the perch and the fence as well as my limited gear available and very poor ambient light meant that I would be compromising.  There would be no depth of field today.

As I framed up this shot, I knew that the bird’s eye was the key to the photo. I also knew that an abstract of the patterns around its eye were going to be supporting cast to the eye itself.  With razor-thin depth of field, I concentrated on catching the bird with as much of its head in the same distance-to-lens range as the eye.  Fortunately I had a camera with megapixels to spare. I knew I could crop down to get the image I was after.

After porting the image through Lightroom, I set about making a crop. My criteria were:

1. Limiting the area of the crop to maximum depth-of-field region
2. Keeping the eye the center of focus
3. Creating an interesting abstract around these elements

A severe crop rotation allowed me to place the eye on a rule of thirds and maximize the area of the bird in the crop.  A nearly square aspect ratio allowed me to capture the maximum area of sharp focus.  The angle also served to increase the abstract feel of the image as it created an angle not usually seen when viewing a macaw up close.

The final crop show here has just the effect I was looking for. It is abstract, sharp and well composed.  The detail is exquisite. You can see individual feathers, the sky in the catch light of the macaw’s eyes, and the little cracks and peals on the bill.  As I look at it now, I see it has an almost elephant feel.  I am struck by how similar this looks to a close up portrait of an elephant’s eye, albeit with the brilliantcolors!

I have to give props to Laurie Hernandez of Worldesigns Photo Costa Rica Tours for this crop idea. In April, she and I photographed wild macaws near the Arenal volcano and she made a similar crop of one of her captures.  Impressed by it, I flattery her with my imitation here. Given the large number of capture megapixels (21) and the remaining crop size in megapixels (3), we have managed to isolate an very small portion of this image into an effective new image. 

When you plan for a severe crop like this at time of capture you need to make certain of a few details:

1. Sharp focus on the critical area
2. No camera shake (tripod or high shutter speed)
3. Put the end target in the lens’ sweet spot for maximum quality
4. Work the focus planes so that you get a maximum area of sharp focus (in this case, moving around the bird and waiting for a head turn accomplished the task)
5. Try different rotations in your cropping software

If you plan for ultra-cropping in advance, your results will look like you expect and make for some stunning imagery.

Rikk Flohr © 2010