Does anyone else recall that Hasselblad used to advertise their square format cameras specifically for cropping after the fact? -- Shoot square, then crop out a vertical for the cover, or a horizontal for the inside spread. Infinite flexibility. Here's a quote from
a 1993 NYT article:
"Ernst Wildi, technical director of Hasselblad in the United States, is a champion of the square format. He says 120 roll film gives a photographer more film area for higher-quality results than 35-millimeter and allows one to shift easily -- with a little cropping -- to making either vertical or horizontal pictures from the square format. He likes to point out that internationally known photographers like Mary Ellen Mark and Greg Heisler are Hasselblad users."
Not many beginners using 'Blads back then. I used the Bronica SQ-A, great camera.
I can understand -- sort of -- this bias against cropping if we're talking about landscape or architectural photography. Camera, tripod, locked down, with a careful and almost obsessive attention to every detail. And this is The Luminous Landscape, and many members shoot that sort of work.
But I find it laughable that so many responses here basically say the same thing: that anyone who crops is by definition a bad or beginning photographer. Tell that to old Ernst, why don't you....