One of the advantages of Flickr is that it allows people to draw suggested crops on a displayed photograph that they feel might improve or refocus the subject matter. One of my friends on Flickr, Steff, is one of the tightest of croppers and can often see a way of emphasising an image that I have missed, or just another way of interpreting the subject matter. Either way it is interesting to see how other people view your work and what they would do with the available material. Steff’s Flickr pages can be viewed at Purplesteffi. Here are two crops she suggested for an informal unposed portrait I took of a friend. First the original as posted on Flickr & if you click on the image it will take you to the original as posted on Flickr:
I titled this ‘Mark on the Phone’ & I was attracted by the empty office, the debris in the foreground & the contrasting light & shadows which is repeated in different ways over the whole composition.
Steff’s first suggestion, which I have tried to recreate (not posted on Flickr) was a long crop & retains a lot of what I was trying to achieve but removing the debris:
Steffi Crop 01
Her second suggestion was much more radical and made the man the central focal object in every sense whilst still retaing light & shadow at the back of the picture (again not posted on Flickr):
Steffi Crop 02
I think all three compositions work but all three are very different “subjects”.
