Which Crop ?

[Alpha_7]

Which framing / composition do you prefer in this shot ?
Or do they both suck ?

[zeddy]

i prefer number one
zsolt

[Onyx]

Craig, you asked for which crop, so I'll ignore the difference in colour between them, etc.

IMO it's the difference between intimacy, and isolation. The top shows the two together (nice job on not blowing the whites BTW), whereas the bottom shows more their isolation in sitting at the pier together.

The top one gives me the warm and fuzzies - especially fast forward 6 weeks from now, say around Valentines...

[sirhc55]

#1

[Alpha_7]

Craig, you asked for which crop, so I'll ignore the difference in colour between them, etc.

IMO it's the difference between intimacy, and isolation. The top shows the two together (nice job on not blowing the whites BTW), whereas the bottom shows more their isolation in sitting at the pier together.

The top one gives me the warm and fuzzies - especially fast forward 6 weeks from now, say around Valentines...

CHi thanks for the honest feedback, I didn't actually look at both together (the WB is very different hmmm will have to look at that). And the D200 gets all the credit for not blowing the highlights, I just snapped opened in CS2 and didn't have any flashing highlights (Impressive).

[Yi-P]

It is matter of taste actually,

For a romantic feel, #1 for sure

As Chi said, #2 makes up an isolation feel of them both at the pier.

[Matt. K]

#2 for me.

[Oz_Beachside]

#2, with the pier post, adding to the composition. I'm biased as a love the "beachside"

[gstark]

Craig,

This simple example goes a very long way towards illustratiing how much just cropping an image can change the way it looks and feels.

I prefer the intimacy of the first, but, for the second, try cropping just a little off the bottom, to make the pier a little thinner, and then crop the rh side more tightly, leacing perhaps about the same amount of space between the edge of the frame and the lady's bag as you have between the post and the frame edge on the lh side of the image.

Let's see how that crop works, please.

[nat]

#2 for me too, Craig.

I feel a sense of romance from this one because it shows two people close together in a fairly isolated setting. #1 on the other hand doesn't actually do much for me at all.

Disclaimer - My wife continually tells me that I have no clue when it comes to romance, so consider my comments with caution!

[Alpha_7]

Thanks for the feedback (and I hope I haven't mislead everyone too much) the two images are two different frames taken one after the other but recomposing (Zooming in and out).

Gary here is the crop version (of the second shot), I hope I got it near enough to your suggestions.

[Oscar]

Craig, I prefer the cropped version of the second shot - nice pic.

Both shots work for me.

Well done.

Cheers, Mick

[PiroStitch]

the second "crop" shows more intimacy and story than the first one. for me the second shot shows both isolation and romance which sounds like what you were trying to achieve in the first place

[gstark]

Craig,

Yes, exactly.

The question though is what do YOU think is the best version of these images?

[MATT]

Tthe original 2nd.. I actually prefer to see more of the timber they are sitting on.

But as Gary said , which do you prefer??


Cheers
MATT

[Alpha_7]

Well I was undecided before but I think #3 tells more of a story then the others, that said I didn't really like the shot to begin with, but it has grown on me (I thought it had potential, but I'm my own worse critic).

[Slider]

3 for me

[sirhc55]

For me #1 is still the one - intimacy is about being together and not in isolation with another object. The inclusion of the bollard destroys the intimate feel of the couple IMO

[Mj]

And for me #3 works the best... #1 shows little of interest to me as I'd prefer a little more to the story, but #2 lacks balance and framing.

[gstark]

Craig,

There's nothing ever wrong with being your own worst critic. If nothing else, it helps you conserve valuable disk space.

Let's try to play with these images a little more: do you think that perhaps further cropping might help either of these images (1 and 2/3)? If so, where?

I do have a couple of thoughts in this realm, so that's why I'm exploring this a little further with you.