June 23, 2003
First Installment of My Photographic Self-Denunciation: Bad Framing
On my last two big photo excursions I managed to poison two potentially very nice, striking photos by doing a lousy job framing the shot.
In this case, I love the nun's stern, windblown pose, the deeply saturated bus, and the pleasing bokeh of the background market.
What ruins this photo irrevocably is that I chopped her at the ankles. No matter how open-mindedly you look at it, your eye is always drawn to the tiny bit of ankle left visible which screams out, "He chopped the nun's feet!"
It's irredeemable -- the more you crop it, the weirder it looks.
Similarly with this photograph of a car plowing itself sideways through a turn. Again, a very pleasing picture when seen through squinted eyes -- sharp, saturated, with a simple and compelling action.
But what happened to the car's left wheel? There is dirt absolutely boiling off the right wheel, the driver and navigator look like they're going somewhere in a hurry, and the flow of the scene strongly hints your eye to the car's left wheel. But when you discover the wheel missing, the flow of the whole picture is shattered.
This picture is also unrepairable. The visual flow is so woven into the fabric of this photo that there is no other way to dice it into a complete, compelling photo.
Why!?
I wish I could say how these accidents happen.
I can't blame it on the viewfinder of my camera. I shot the nun photo with an EOS-3. Its viewfinder shows less than the lens, not more. So if anything, I was cropping to an even narrower version of the nun picture than what you see. The car photo, taken with my EOS-1v has a 100% viewfinder, so I should have noticed the clumsy framing when I shot.
Flattering myself, I can say that perhaps the subjects of the photos were so attention-commanding that it prevented me from noticing the periphery (ankles and tires). But I think this is a lazy, self-satisfying answer.
Most of the time I'm shooting in a hurry. Haste never helps fine details. I must make add a quick "scan main subject for any non-intentional clipping" to my pre-fire shooting checklist.
Posted by Nils Blutig at June 23, 2003 10:26 PM | TrackBack