The photographer excludes

Brief but excellent essay over at Luminous Landscape: "The Photographer Excludes," by Peter Cox.

There's a saying: "The painter includes; the photographer excludes". A painter will include only those elements in a composition which they expressly want. A photographer, on the other hand, must work out how to exclude distracting elements. This is a large part of the challenge in making great images.

I liked Cox's example of how he took a photo that he initially thought was no good and, by cropping it further, turned it into one of his favorites. I learned the importance of cropping decades ago when I was editing my college yearbook. Time after time I turned a bad photo into one that was merely mediocre by cropping tightly. I was less often able by cropping to turn a mediocre photo into a good one.

I wrote about cropping last year ("Crop rotation"). When I shoot a wedding or other event, I tend these days to include a bit more of the scene than I think necessary. I do this for a simple practical - one might even say commercial - reason: I want to make it possible for my clients to crop the photo to whatever print size they prefer.

But I have to confess that I feel guilty about this. We don't have an infinite number of print sizes available to us or anything like, but we do have a variety of sizes and aspect ratios. And it makes sense, at least in terms of artistic principle, that a photo that, say, ought to be presented at a 1:2 aspect ratio, should be so presented and that I should be insistent about it. This photo from my daughter's dance studio, for example, is only interesting at 1:2. At the camera's original 2:3 aspect ratio, the effect of the photo - the chopping and distortion created by the long and wide mirror - is almost completely lost. To print (or display) this at any other aspect ratio would be a mistake.

I wish I had the nerve to tell my brides that a 2:3 photo may be printed at 4"x6" or even 8"x12" (which is one of my pro lab's options) but that it definitely should not be cropped to fit a 5"x7" or 8"x10" frame. If the frame is indeed the essence of the photo - and I believe it is - then monkeying around with the frame ought to be regarded as a no-no, as doing damage to the photo.

Ah, but I make more from an 8"x10" print than I do from a 4"x6". And if the bride's mother wants an 8"x10", I'll do what I can to accommodate.

What's coming here in Big D

Couple of things for photography lovers to look forward to here in Dallas.

If you're on the email list for AfterImage Gallery in the Dallas Quadrangle (proprietor Ben Breard), you know already that they're pulling some great pieces out of their amazing inventory. I'm planning a trip down there very soon.

And the Dallas Museum, which I don't usually think of as a major venue for photography, is sponsoring this spring an exciting exhibition titled "The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850–1874". Yeah, it's an awkward title but that's the case with a lot of exhibitions. Anyway, for more info, check out the exhibit page on the Dallas Museum web site, here. Exhibit will run February 21 through May 23, 2010.