no cropping, no cloning!

Yesterday I read an article on Henri-Cartier Bresson. The article stated that maestro Bresson would never cut in any of his negatives. If there was anything he didn't like in the photograph, he wouldn't copy it. I was rather amused by this, because I work by the same principle. I will simply delete pictures with annoying details, if the picture didn't work for me for me the first time then it is flawed.


Now, I don't mean to offend anyone. I'm aware of the advantages of cropping, especially for longdistance shooting. I'm certainly no awesome photographer, but this is my ideology, I guess. No cropping, no cloning. Simply: get it right the first time!

(on a side note, this might be what makes me prefer 50mm to 35mm: less side details to concider.)

Does that mean no PP of any kind? Kind of a rigid attitude.

There's certainly no right or wrong and we are all free to pursue photography as we wish. That said, I would have to disagree with your philosophy....why throw away a beautiful photo that only requires a bit of cropping to make it perfect? Especially if it's a subject that couldn't be easily re-shot.
Not to mention....how would you ever print an 8x10? You couldn't create an image in any other aspect ratio than 2x3....just seems too limiting.

I only print to 5x7, 8x10 & 11x14's - I crop and I'm happy I do

I crop, therefore I am....lol

Now that is interesting. A month or so ago, I decided that I was relying too much on cropping as a compositional tool. Who cares about those wires, or the corner of that building? I'll just crop them out in pp! What did I do to remedy this? I picked up a film camera and started thinking about composition at the time of the shot (I've never shot film in earnest before). It's only been a few weeks, but I notice the difference.

I'm not going to throw away any of my tools, including cropping and cloning. Tools are exactly that, tools, things that are used to create a final product. But if you think about it, I was using lesser tools, cropping and cloning, instead of the most important tools: my brain and my imagination.

Use the brain and the imagination first. But don't toss the other tools. None of us are Henri-Cartier Bresson, at least not that I know.

spelunker wrote in post #7561584
Yesterday I read an article on Henri-Cartier Bresson. The article stated that maestro Bresson would never cut in any of his negatives. If there was anything he didn't like in the photograph, he wouldn't copy it. I was rather amused by this, because I work by the same principle. I will simply delete pictures with annoying details, if the picture didn't work for me for me the first time then it is flawed.

Source of article? In the recently published "Scrapbook" of his work it clearly shows the cropping done to his most famous 'puddle jumper' image.

it's very easy to concentrate on the subject, and miss the other stuff in the shot. I admit I get carried away, snapping at family dos and don't always pay as much attention as i know I should.

I also stood next to a F1 car at silverstone for 20 minutes waiting for the crowd to GET OUT THE F***** SHOT

when I remember, i force myself to look all round the edge of the frame, just to make sure nothing is creeping in, and more importantly creeping out of shot. however more important that that, is the stuff behind the subject you cant crop without extensive photoshop skills

"Source of article? In the recently published "Scrapbook" of his work it clearly shows the cropping done to his most famous 'puddle jumper' image."

Perhaps the emperor wears no clothes.

Sounds like a bunch of "crop" to me!

jra wrote in post #7561892
There's certainly no right or wrong and we are all free to pursue photography as we wish. That said, I would have to disagree with your philosophy....why throw away a beautiful photo that only requires a bit of cropping to make it perfect? Especially if it's a subject that couldn't be easily re-shot.

Well, if it's not easily re-shot, then I'll likely keep it around in "the archives" for memory's sake. I still wouldn't crop it. However, most of the times it's pictures that I've taken out walking in my own pace. If I was, say, a wildlife photographer or a photojournalist or something it might've been different.

Well, I guess it would have to be cropped then. But that's more of a technical issue.


TheHoff: The article was published in Foto, a Swedish magazine.

Here is the same discussion on Flickr in the HCB group:

http://www.flickr.com …iscuss/72157594​367656383/

They concur that he often said "no cropping!" but it also cites another source showing that the Gare Saint-Lazare photo (puddle jumper) was cropped, taking out on the left a blurry part of the fence that he shot through and some water on the bottom of the frame.

And if you go into any good bookstore, check out the huge format "Scrapbook" which shows the original negative and then his crop of his most famous image.

Are all of his photos in the 3:2 aspect ratio?

chauncey wrote in post #7561845
Does that mean no PP of any kind? Kind of a rigid attitude.

A lot of documentary photographers would burn dodge and use other darkroom techniques to enhance their images but would print with oversized negative carriers to show the edges of the neg in the print to show that they hadn't cropped their images. The dark edges with the occasion Kodak on the print. They did this to show they didn't crop the image but they would certainly burn and dodge to enhance their images.

Sometimes it can't be helped. For example I often can't get power lines out of my landscape shots no matter where I stand, hence the beauty of the clone tool.