In keeping with our series on Rules of Composition, today we offer you this-don't crop your subject at the joints.
What does that mean?
Basically, when you are looking through your viewfinder before you take your image, you see what will be photographed. If you move further away, or closer to your subject, then the "crop' changes. What you see in the viewfinder is different. When you are composing your image, there are so many things to consider, too! What is in the foreground? What is in the background? What are the distracting elements that will take away from your subject?
So, in order to get the best composition of your subject those things need to be considered.
What also needs to be considered is not cropping your subject at his or her joints-meaning-wrists, ankles, neck elbows, etc...
Why?
If you have one subject in your image, and you are photographing him or her for a head shot, you should not crop your subject at the neck. He or she will look like a floating head.
If you have one subject in your image, and the hand placement is such that you crop at the finger joints, you will have only part of the hand in the image. The image looks so much better when everyone's body parts are not cut off and in the image.
What about a full body image? What if you crop at the ankle joints? How do you think that would look?
The reasoning behind this is that you want to see all of your subject depending on your crop-full body, head shot, 3/4, etc..and do not want to have it look like there are missing body parts.
Below are some examples of good cropping-take a look!
Take a look at images where I DID crop at the joints!
These images should have been cropped better. In the first one, there is not enough room at the top, and I cut off the mom's hand! It is cropped at the wrist, and should not be!
The image of the beautiful young girl would have been so much better if I had not chopped off her feet. In other words-not cropped at the ankles.
What could I have done better?
For the first image, I should have pulled back further away, then composed so there was more head room at the top, and then had the mom place her hand on top of the other one, or on her husband's knee. It would have been a better pose, and then I would not have cut her hand off!
Granted, when you are out photographing a family with a baby, you often have to do the best you can-especially if the little one is unhappy.
For the image with the beautiful young girl, I should have either included all of her in the image, or cropped in closer and cropped closer to her knee-but not at it. That would have made for a better image!
This image was taken by Beth Forester, a professional photographer on the east coast. Here she demonstrates what it means to not crop at the joints! Wherever you see a red line-do not crop your image there, and you will have a much better composed and pleasing portrait!
Check out our Family Portfolio and see how we did!
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