We were assigned a cropping activity over the weekend following our cropping lecture on Wednesday. I decided to concentrate on the work of Martin Parr, Don McCullin and Vivian Maier and look at how the message and meaning of their work can be altered by using cropping alone.
MARTIN PARR
I chose this image to crop from his series of photographs titled "Signs of the Times" which focussed on the personal tastes in British design within the home, and why people chose certain things to appear in their houses. I cropped this image in the following ways:
6x4
I firstly cropped this in a 6x4 inch format, which is how I usually see my photographs at home printed. I cropped from just above the mans head and just below the woman's shoes. I felt this demonstrated a tighter crop, and if we was not concentrating on the series as a whole and what Parr was trying to demonstrate in this collective, it would make for a better photograph.
7x5
I then cropped this in a 7x5 inch format, which give the photograph more depth and gives extra room on all sides of the models. It is similar to the original photograph, yet I feel this gets rid of the dead space at the top and bottom of the photograph.
Square
I then decided to crop this in a square format like many photographers who worked in the 90's would present their photographs because of the crop on 120 film. I do not like the image cropped in a square format, as it takes away the interesting subject matter to the left and right.
Panoramic
I then decided to crop this in a panoramic style and I believe that it works too, but not as well as the 6x4 and 7x5 format I displayed earlier. This type of crop keeps all the subject matter important to Parr's subject series, but I feel that by cutting the woman's legs off causes the photograph to look unnatural.
Meaning
I decided to crop the photograph with just the woman sat in the chair. When I looked closer into the photograph as a whole, I saw that the woman look inferior to the male as he was stood up, towering above her, whilst she was sat down as if she was lower than he was. This was typical of the time, as men were seen to be a greater sex than women were, however, by cropping the image, so the woman is lone in the shot sat in a chair, there is no hierarchy to compare her too. She looks like the most important person in the image, as she is. Therefore, I have changed the meaning of the image to her being the lower power figure in the photograph, to being the higher and only.
Focus
I have changed the focus here by cropping the show the upper torso of the male figure in the photograph, and then changed the crop so he was placed exactly on the rule of thirds line to the right. This changed the focus from the surroundings to him exclusively.
DON MCCULLIN
Here is the original photograph that I chose to crop, as it is one of my favourite photographs to date by Don McCullin. Don McCullin is a war photographer who travelled all over the world to document the wars and crisis'.
6x4
I cropped this photograph in a 6x4 and not only do I feel it gives a tighter and more condensed crop, but it also gets rid of the policeman in the right hand side who seems to be talking to another policeman. I felt this made the image a bit messy and this crop gets rid of that and concentrates on the main purpose of the photograph. I love how all the policemen are just staring at the man on the floor, in a sense of disbelief?
Panoramic
I then cropped this photograph in a panoramic composition, with just the policemen's heads in shot. I felt this gave a certain mystery to the photograph, what are they looking at and why?
Square
I then cropped it in a square format and placed the protester central in the composition. I felt this gave it a clear and crisp composition and made the photograph look tidy and neat (my OCD shining through perhaps?). It, again, cut out the talking policeman to the right which I find distracting.
Message
I cropped so you could just see the protester and the policeman's legs, but then this shot takes a completely different meaning. This person could be a child who is just sat on the floor, and the policemen no longer look like policemen, they just look like people in black trousers. By just using this simple crop, I take the viewer from knowing exactly what is happening in the photograph to knowing nothing at all.
Focus
I then took a completely different direction, I decided to place the talking policeman on the right rule of thirds line, making him one of the main focusses of the image. I then also placed the protester and foreground policeman on the left rule of third, making them a fore point of the photograph.
VIVIAN MAIER
I decided to, for my final cropping assignment, to concentrate on the work of Vivian Maier. Lawrence and Jason introduced me to her work and I am addicted!
6x4
I cropped this in a 6x4 format, and it works really well in concentrating solely on the man with the crutches rather than the passersby. The feet of the people in the background still give the viewer a knowledge that they are walking by.
10x8
I had not tried the 10x8 inch cropping format until this image, and was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. I cropped this image just below the foreground passersby's faces to give them a sense of anonymousity.
Panoramic
I then decided to crop this in a panoramic format and was not impressed. I thought the other panoramic crops worked really well, but this one cuts out most of the detail. We can no longer see that the man in the foreground is disabled, and we cannot see that the people are ignoring him either. However, if you had originally seen the photograph and then seen it cropped, it holds a good composition because the girl in the background who is looking back is on the right hand side rule of thirds line making her the main focus point of the image.
Focus
I also concentrated on that last statement, and made the girl the main focus in this image, I placed her on the right hand side rule of thirds line to make her one of the central pieces of attention in the image.
Message
I cropped the entirety of the image out to leave just these two walking ladies in the image, which changed the whole meaning of the image. Instead of us focussing on the disabled homeless man being ignored by the passersby, we see these two ladies immersed in conversation having a relatively good day, which is a completely contrast to the darkness of the original.
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