[Leica] was Multiple Bodies, now cropping-phooey!

[chandos at cox.net (Chandos Michael Brown)]

Hey, Phong, knock yourself out.  You wanna crop, crop. It's
never-no-mind to me.

We all conceive of discipline in different ways, I suppose.  I try to
see the print in the viewfinder.  This is how I learned photography;
this is how I choose to practice it.  If I don't find it limiting, then
why should I heed the words of people who insist that I should.

If it works for you (and evidently it does), then enjoy!

Cheers

Chandos

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+cmbrow=wm.edu@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+cmbrow=wm.edu@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Phong
Sent: Sunday, March 06, 2005 2:17 PM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: RE: [Leica] was Multiple Bodies, now cropping-phooey!

Chandos Michael Brown wrote:
> On the contrary, I view it as the height of laziness to 'discover' the
> image in the darkroom or on the monitor.
>
> I try to get it right the first time, and have never felt that this
limits
my
> "creativity." I suppose I was exposed to Minor White at too
> impressionable an age.
>
> And I'm a first rate cook, thank you very much, if I can trust the
> judgment of the many people who've dined at my table.


I do not agree with B.D. and you.
Post-exposure cropping is an important tool and I do not
understand why some people are so adamant in not using it.

Please understand that composition is extremely important
for my own photography.  In many, many instances, the placement
of graphical elements in the image is what makes or breaks a photo
for me.   So I am not cavalier about composition at all.
And yet there are many reasons why I prefer to crop.

For one, Leica M framing is only so accurate.   For another,
unless I shoot slides, (and even then !), the film is never the end
but  an intermediate step toward the final product, whose
proportions may not be the same as the film.   And there might be
reasons that I choose in advance to crop later (do not want to move
around too much as not to disturb the subject).  Finally, there is
a lot of creativity in the post-exposure processings that I enjoy,
including cropping.

I disagree with Sonny on his choice of words; I would call it
being unnecessarily dogmatic rather than laziness.

Interestingly enough there are plenty of cooks, good and bad,
that are also unnecessary dogmatic about their methods.
It's just me, but I rather not be dogmatic about things like
to crop or not.

Regards,

- Phong

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