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Author Topic: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment  (Read 259769 times)

Rob C

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #20 on: September 01, 2010, 12:16:24 pm »

"Hi Feppe No not all, I was exposed to so much MORE than what the photography magazine preaches.  I already said that I thought I knew it, UNTIL I went to college.  Elitism by the way happened to be something my tutors hated.  You really should not presume this: =====now it's ruled by college professors?=====

Oh about art not needing any formal education.  Mmm, every talented or gifted person in any discipline needs guidance, training, coaching, even some need extra tuition, without it?  they might never reach their Full potential to astound."




People often don't have any potential in the medium within which they mistakenly find themselves swimming or sinking.

You seem to be confusing photography with some major science; you can teach a friggin' monkey how to point a camera; when you try to interfere beyond that, in my opinion, you are interfering with the virgin mind and you just shouldn't do that. That state of grace is the only advantage the newbie has: let him pick his own sources of inspiration; as both Russ and I have written here ad nauseam, the way to find out how to do it is to look at the world of existing images already around you and discover where you fit, not where some third party is trying to encourage you to go, however subtle (or otherwise) the encouragement.

Rob C

feppe

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #21 on: September 01, 2010, 01:11:36 pm »

Quote from HCB:
"If you start cutting or cropping a good photograph, it means death to the geometrically correct interplay of proportions."

I hope there's a wider context to the quote, as talking about "geometrically correct" when it comes to aspect ratio doesn't make any sense. As I mentioned film and camera ARs have been chosen by engineers based on mainly technological and legacy reasons, and who put probably very little though into aesthetics.

If he's talking about conventions of photographic AR being from 4:1 to 1:1 to 1:4 or thereabouts I would agree, but if he's talking about a specific AR in a 35mm frame or 645 or whatever then I vehemently disagree. I see no reason why shooting a 2:1 panorama on my 6x6, for example, would break any kind of rule, except for perhaps wasting film.

I can see it can be argued that it's "incorrect" or even "lacking integrity" to decide after-the-fact to crop, while I can't see anything wrong to decide on-location to shoot various ARs with one camera depending on the subject matter. Perhaps that's what HCB, and you, Russ, mean?

Vuurtoren

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #22 on: September 01, 2010, 01:24:52 pm »

QUOTE==========People often don't have any potential in the medium within which they mistakenly find themselves swimming or sinking.

let him pick his own sources of inspiration; as both Russ and I have written here ad nauseam, the way to find out how to do it is to look at the world of existing images already around you and discover where you fit, not where some third party is trying to encourage you to go, however subtle (or otherwise) the encouragement.=======QUOTE


Sinking people, when helped, rescue others!   Inspriration NEEDS to be nurtured! 
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What we see and what we are looking at are often two very different things.

mahleu

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #23 on: September 01, 2010, 01:43:06 pm »

Every time you raise a camera you are cropping.
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RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #24 on: September 01, 2010, 02:21:44 pm »

Every time you raise a camera you are cropping.

Exactly, Mahleu. That's the point HCB was making. When you raise the camera, that's the time to do the cropping.

If he's talking about conventions of photographic AR being from 4:1 to 1:1 to 1:4 or thereabouts I would agree, but if he's talking about a specific AR in a 35mm frame or 645 or whatever then I vehemently disagree. I see no reason why shooting a 2:1 panorama on my 6x6, for example, would break any kind of rule, except for perhaps wasting film.

I can see it can be argued that it's "incorrect" or even "lacking integrity" to decide after-the-fact to crop, while I can't see anything wrong to decide on-location to shoot various ARs with one camera depending on the subject matter. Perhaps that's what HCB, and you, Russ, mean?

Harri, As I pointed out earlier, he's not talking about any specific AR. He's talking about getting the masses, lines, repetitions, etc. into correct relationships to each other (pleasing, informative or striking, etc., depending on what you're trying to do). The AR doesn't matter. Of course, knowing what you're trying to do when you raise the camera is essential if you're to have have any hope of doing that. But you also have to understand that HCB isn't talking about landscapes. He's talking mostly about street photography where you can't shoot the same scene with more than one AR at a time.

On the other hand, I have to confess that the AR you're using makes a difference. Back in the fifties I did a lot of shooting with a Rollei -- in fact the picture I posted earlier on this thread is from a Rollei. With a Rollei I was looking for a different kind of picture than I was when I had a 35mm in my hands. It's not that I said to myself: "Now you have to find square format pictures," but with that camera in my hands my mind automatically was framing the world at 1 to 1. 2 to 3 is an active format. 1 to 1 is a passive format. With a Rollei I seemed to be looking for static pictures, where, with a 35mm I was looking for active pictures. Here's another example. If I'd been shooting 35mm I'd have been down there on the river bank up close to the refugees.
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Rob C

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #25 on: September 02, 2010, 04:36:21 am »

QUOTE==========People often don't have any potential in the medium within which they mistakenly find themselves swimming or sinking.

let him pick his own sources of inspiration; as both Russ and I have written here ad nauseam, the way to find out how to do it is to look at the world of existing images already around you and discover where you fit, not where some third party is trying to encourage you to go, however subtle (or otherwise) the encouragement.=======QUOTE


Sinking people, when helped, rescue others!   Inspriration NEEDS to be nurtured! 



 

Okay, I give in: black is white is any colour you'd like it to be.

Rob C

Vuurtoren

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #26 on: September 02, 2010, 12:14:46 pm »



 

Okay, I give in: black is white is any colour you'd like it to be.

Rob C
That's the beauty of colour.  Perceived within the context of one's momentary experience of light.
« Last Edit: September 02, 2010, 12:20:48 pm by Vuurtoren »
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chex

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #27 on: September 03, 2010, 09:29:29 am »

Is it just me that thinks HCB's photography is downright boring?
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pegelli

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #28 on: September 03, 2010, 10:16:59 am »

Is it just me that thinks HCB's photography is downright boring?

Probably not, but I think you're missing the point of this thread    :o
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pieter, aka pegelli

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DarkPenguin

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #30 on: September 03, 2010, 12:23:35 pm »

Is it just me that thinks HCB's photography is downright boring?

Not boring but I really never need to see it again.  Kind of like AA's work in that respect....
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rardinger

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #31 on: September 07, 2010, 12:19:48 pm »

I know this thread is old and the topic has been gone over many times before but when I saw the title I could not resist passing this along:

http://www.ethertongallery.com/html/specialprojects/negative/details/6.htm

Looking at this negative and comparing it to the final image will show a "crop".

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/bressonbehind.jpg

(not to be confused with this one:)

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2051/1674380391_4f758a03cf_z.jpg

HCB's work is just as enlightening and inspiring to me now as it was when I first discovered it in high school nearly 40 years ago.  I personally have never embraced the idea of cropping an photograph to whatever size and shape it takes to get to a final image and tend to keep the final image in the same aspect ratio as the format I used.  I do crop the original image, many times if not all the time, some what to make up for compositional errors with what the viewfinder sees and what is recorded, what lens I have (vs. what would be best), etc.   At the end of the day, the final resulting image lives or dies on it's own merit, how one gets there is not that important.

Robert
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RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #32 on: September 07, 2010, 01:22:13 pm »

Robert, You're right. That's "Behind The Gare Saint-Lazare," one of only two photographs I know of that HCB had to crop.He cropped it because of the post on the left. He obviously didn't have time to move to the right, away from the post. The other cropped HCB photograph is "Cardinal Pacelli in Montmarte." In that case he couldn't push his way to the front of the crowd, so he raised the camera over his head and shot down. It's cropped but it's a very, very moving image.

You can't always avoid cropping. Here's one I shot yesterday. I had a 50mm prime on the D3 and it was obvious the kid wasn't going to hold that pose long enough for me to move closer. But I knew what the final crop was going to be when I tripped the shutter. That's different from banging away and hoping you can find a picture later in Photoshop.
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 01:32:17 pm by RSL »
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Rob C

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #33 on: September 07, 2010, 03:05:11 pm »

I can just see that I shall have to extract the digit and get back into the stuff I did on Sunday.

What I did notice in one series, where I had done the 'pick a stage and await the actors' thing, is that it caused some interest/concern? amongst some ladies having coffee in the far background. One in particular, with Anna Wintour sunglasses - maybe Anna was slumming? - was giving me the benefit of a very direct gaze. Perhaps I missed out... but with the 1.8/50 manual at around f11, it looks quite crisp to me. As I wrote before, those actors never showed; damned thespians.

Rob C
« Last Edit: September 07, 2010, 03:10:51 pm by Rob C »
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EduPerez

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #34 on: September 08, 2010, 05:55:35 am »

I do not think cropping can be considered inherently wrong; the problem, in my humble opinion, is the risk of failing into the lazy habit of careless framing, with the intention of cropping the result later.
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Mike_Kelly

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #35 on: September 24, 2010, 07:35:33 pm »

Every photograph ever taken anywhere was.....cropped.
You are arguing which are the best or how to limit cropping tools?
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RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #36 on: September 25, 2010, 10:42:46 am »

Mike, Sometimes its worthwhile to read the thread before you respond. Check replies #23 and #24.
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LKaven

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #37 on: September 27, 2010, 04:52:42 pm »

It is always the case that this perennial topic gets confused with a variety of spurious normative claims, to the effect that one should compose in the camera and never crop.  Impossible to defend.  But what is usually overlooked are the reasons why composing in camera at the time of capture has a special status.

In philosophy of action, the agent commits an act, where the act is explained by reasons (beliefs and desires) which are brought to bear on the moment (and at no other time), and the meaning of the act is fixed in an important sense.  Leading up to the act, the agent committed his/herself to all manner of choices, including where to stand, where to look, and exactly when to trip the shutter and commit to the capture.  

In the cases where the agent is most engaged, engaged in what Dewey called "experience par excellence", we expect the agent's actions to be most meaningful in the aesthetic sense (even in the everyday aesthetic sense).  In these cases, what the photographer produced at the moment of capture bears the marks of inspiration, rich inspiration, to the extent that it would be difficult for the photographer to reconstruct his/her own motivations -- or to improve upon them -- after the fact.  

While cropping is not inherently wrong, there are some deficits that one has to accept in the trade.  The question is often this: Is a proper subset of the frame captured an /ideal/ capture?  The answer is that there is no a priori reason to believe that the ideal capture is a proper subset of the original capture.  Given a rejection of the original capture, the ideal capture might have been in an entirely different angle, viewpoint, or perspective.  One can only make a compromise.

Is there a normative claim in this?  No.  You can make your art by whatever means, with the only qualification being that it is artistically justified.  But for those who are engaged with their subjects in just the appropriate way, the unedited capture will exhibit artistic depth in a special way.

For my part of it, I affirm this approach, and will only see the benefits of cropping about once in a thousand captures.  But I acknowledge that other artistic approaches have merit.

RSL

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #38 on: September 27, 2010, 05:59:07 pm »

Well, that settles it then.
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feppe

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Re: Yeah Cartier-Bresson couldn't crop for........a member's comment
« Reply #39 on: September 27, 2010, 06:01:06 pm »

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