Understanding Aspect Ratios and The Art of Cropping

A Bandage for Poor Composition, or a Creative Tool?

The Bandage. Imlil, Morocco. January, 2007

Leica M8

An old saying in photography has it that – "Ifyour photographs aren‘t good enough, it‘s likely because you aren‘t closeenough". This is oftenmisunderstood to mean that one should be shooting with a long lens, or justdoing close-ups. Not so. What is meant is that any photograph is of necessityabout "something",and it is the photographer‘s task to hone the image so that it contains, tothe greatest degree possible, only that which the photograph is intended tobe about.

There is an apocryphal story that one day the Pope came to visit Michelangeloin his studio while he as sculpting his "David". The Pope marveledat the partially completed work, and asked, "How doyou know what to cut away?" Michelangelo‘s response was, "It‘ssimple. I just remove everything that doesn‘t look like David."

The trick, or rather – the art, is, of course, not in simplyremoving everything that doesn‘t look like David, but in knowing both whatthat is and how to do it. Therein lies our story.

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The Tyranny of Formats

12 Women. Marrakech. January, 2007

Canon G7

Cropping this frame to a very wide aspect ratioremoves those parts of the image that don‘t
contribute to the story – 12 woman waiting in front of a medicalclinic.

In 1924 the Ernst Leitz Company introducedthe first 35mm camera, which had been invented a few years earlier by OscarBarnack.In developing the camera Barnack had taken a roll of 35mm motion picture filmand turned the image area sideways, doubling the format width. Thus was bornthe 24X36mm format which we have become all too familiar with over nearly acentury.

Medium format film has always offered numerous formats, from6X6cm square, to 6X4.5, to 6X7, to 6X9, to 6X12, to 6X17. Large format sheetfilm similarly has different aspect ratios, with 5X7" being much morerectangular than is 4X5".

Go to the movies and you‘ll see a wide variety of formats onscreen, as you also will on your new wide-screen TV. Visit an art gallery,and you‘ll see painting, etchings, lithographs and silk screens in formatsfrom squares to circles to extreme panoramas. In China and Japan traditionalscroll paintings are done in the form of extreme wide aspect ratio horizontalsas well as verticals. And yet, there are photographers who insist on only printingtheir image "fullframe".In other words, maintaining the supposed sanctity of the manufacturer‘s aspectratio. Then there are those who insist on printing exclusively to match standardpaper sizes. What are they thinking?

In January 2007 I published an essay on streetphotography in Marrakech with the new Leica M8. To my amazement there weresome people online who criticized me, wondering publicly why I had croppedmany of the shots to an almost square format, wasting some of thecamera frame‘s real-estate. I was flabbergasted with amazement.

This was in fact the impetus for this article, since it was all too clearthat there are some people involved in photography who don‘t have a clearidea about the nature of cropping – why one does it, and how it can leadto stronger more communicative and more meaningful images.

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Variations on a Theme

There is no magic bullet when it comes to cropping. It is anesthetic decision and therefore will be based solely on the photographer‘screative judgment. Nevertheless, there are usually factors which can be consideredand discussed somewhat objectively.

Fig 1

Figure 1 above was taken just after dawn at the Medinawall in Marrakech. This shows the raw file with no processing. I had just turnedthe corner and saw this scene, with a donkey cart receding, and two distantfigures.

On reviewing the frame my first thought was that I wished I‘dhad the time and forethought to include the complete archway. But, as I exploredthe image I saw that this wasn‘t necessary. The real story here was the cartand driver, and the uncluttered simplicity of the wall and street. No cars,no street signs. no parking meters. This shot could have as easily be takenin 1207 as in 2007. (The rubber tires give it away, but you seewhat I mean).

Fig 2

With this simplicity of form in mind I cropped the frameto try and achieve a balance between the cart, the wall, and the archway. Anythingthat wasn‘t about the wall and cart was removed. This lead to an almost squareaspect ratio – but so what? This is what the shot wants to be. I also convertedit to monochrome, and toned the image to provide an additional feeling of timelessness.

Fig 3

In planning this essay I returned to this imageand explored other possible croppings and treatments. Above, in Figure3, I explored includingthe second man in the distance. I also included a bit more of the street andwall behind the cart, though the cropping would have also worked with lessblank wall to the right of frame. Having it this way though lets the line ofthe curb become a strong diagonal, leading the eye across the composition.I am less happy with the cart consequently being almost centered, but it doesprovide some balance because of its dark tone transitioning to the lightertonalities of the left of frame.

Fig 4

Figure 4 includes the third person standing against the far wall.It is also the least cropped, and therefore closest to the original framingand aspect ratio of the frame. The context of the image is now more open andless abstracted. We see that it is a street with a definitive end, unlike in Figure2 whichis much more graphic, but being less literal doesn‘t have as much context.I also abstracted the tonalities even further in an approach that tries tomake the image seem from an earlier time – something like the feel of JosefSudek‘s Prague images.

In each instances a somewhat different interpretation caused by cropping (aswell as, of course, some image processing techniques) has produced quitea different photograph. Whether one is more successful than the other is amatter of taste. My preference is still my original interpretation as seenin Figure2, but the others have their merits, and in fact are preferred by someviewers. Such is the nature of art.

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What is The Image About?

Window Seats. Marrakech. January, 2007

Leica M8

When I provide print critique sessions with students on my workshopsand seminars, the first question that I ask is – "Whatis this photograph about?" I often find it remarkable when the photographerdoesn‘t have a clear concept of this.

When looking at a new raw file of my own the first thing I askmyself is that question – What is this image about, and what doI want it to say about the subject? Only when I have a satisfactory answerto this can I proceed to crop and otherwise interpret the image. When thisis in hand I then find it easy to arrive at a cropping, because as with Michelangelo‘sDavid, I simply remove everything that isn‘t relevant to my conceptualization.

Sometimes there is no clear answer, and I then have to honestlyask myself whether the shot in question is worthwhile. More often than not,it isn‘t. It‘s only when all the pieces hang together and an image makes aclear statement, that it‘s worthwhile pursuing on-screen and then in a print.

My feeling is that cropping isn‘t something that we do to animage. It does it itself – demanding to be constrained in certain ways. Sometimesthere‘s more than one way, but it eventually becomes obvious what the photographitself wants. This isn‘t metaphor. The best photographs demand to be a certainshape. The rest make no such requests, and that‘s what separates the winnersfrom the also-rans.

February, 2007