No I am not talking about farming, I will leave that to the people of Country File and other such agricultural programs. I have found whilst working through all this photographic nonsense that sometimes a photo can be made better by cutting out a lot of it. It to give you a better view of what you are trying to portray in the photograh originally
Whilst I have every great intention that every piece of work I produce will be a master piece, straight out of the camera, it doesnt always work. A lot of the time I take a photo of a moment so lining up, assesing the view doesn't always occur. So for me a bit of cropping the photo creatively, with a cup of coffee and chocolate hob nob (if my girlfirend is reading this by chocolate hob nob I mean an apple and a green tea) does give you an opportunity to isolate a particular and probably better part of the photograph, sometimes giving you a view you never intended.It can liven up the most boring of photos. take this photo of a rusty bolt, orignally it was just a bolt BUT cropping it tightly so you only see parts of it gives it a different view.
Now i am not saying that it saves every photo but take a look back through your old photos and see what happens.
One trick i think seems to work in this is if when you take the photo just make sure that
1 - Get a focus on a particular point in the shot, make sure that is sharp e.g always make sure in a photograph someones eyes are always in focus
2 - When you start cropping make sure that focused point is in the shot (especially if you are doing macro work) other wise you will look like you cant take a photograph and its time to throw away all the kit.
sounds silly i know but there are lots of times i cropped out the bit i was focusing on and it gave me a photo that boots normally stick a big yellow sticker on.
You may start for example by getting one of your old photos and drawing a rectangle around a bit of it, allowing you to see what it would look like if you isolated that area. eg portraits, not all the face shows, landscapes, focus on the bit thats good, remove the confusion. the best photographs are simple to the eye from what I have seen. Landscapes are great but I have noticed on mine that they can be complicated by lots of colours or stuff going on. I had every intention of producing this lovely senic photograph but my eye goes 'Arrrrrrrgh - what am I supposed to be looking at. I have looked at some landscapes I have taken and they appear to be at times just lots of colours (beautiful colours obviously) but there isnt something in them to focus on and make my eye go 'ooh whats that and then wander over to another part of the photo.
Let me give you two big tips
BIG TIP ONE crop the photo before you start doing anything else, it saves time and frustrations when editing. maybe this could be a tip for life, cut out all the crap you dont need allowing you to focus on what really important
BIG TIP TWO learn to lie quite well as cropping the photo may give you an image you weren't really intending and when people say 'Congratualtions on picking out that single purple in all that greenery' , you should say 'yes i spotted it' not i was actually aiming over the other side' You will look like the star photographer you are.
give it a go and let me know how you go on.
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