Project 15: Cropping

I found 3 photos that could be cropped to find interesting photos (harder than I thought it would be!) for this project.

Photo 1: The first photos is of a (new) building in Edinburgh with a reflection of another (old) building in it. It is on quite an angle (the photograph that is), which makes cropping difficult.

32mm, 1/100s, f/4.5, ISO200

Photo 1A: I started with a vertical crop of the reflection with the new building providing the 'frame' of the photo. I think this works quite well - I like the tree coming into the reflection and have used the rule of thirds here.

Photo 1B: Next I tried a horizontal view, this time choosing a series of reflections, in different window. I split up the image into 3 vertical bands, with different building/reflections in each, which I think works well.

Photo 2: This photo is a low-wide-angle of the canal in Edinburgh. The reflections on the water are nice and the colours are quite strong also. I think this is actually better than any of the crops below, because the wide angle works well on the nice reflections and doesn't make the scene feel busy at all.

24mm, 1/100s, f/9, ISO100, Tripod

Photo 2A: I started with a vertical crop of the tall building and it's reflection. It is a little uninspired?? Possibly because the building is close to centre of the photo.

Photo 2B: A second vertical crop with the boat at the top of the photo and the water reflecting the sky at the bottom. This feels quite unbalanced to me and doesn't really work.

Photo 2C: So based on the two above, I tried a square crop incorporating both the tall building and the canal boat, which I think works a bit better. However this photo is quite busy.

Photo 3: This photo was taken at Aviemore, and is a portrait shot of a tree (silhouette) with some mountains and lake (partly frozen) in the back- & mid-ground of the photo. I think it's quite a strong composition already.

17mm, 1/13s, f/22, ISO100, Tripod

Photo 3A: This is a landscape crop of the hills with the dark horizon near the bottom third line and the tree strong on the left third line.


Photo 3B: Then I chose to focus on the water - partly frozen and bobbing about, with another lovely reflections (gosh I've got a theme going on here!!) of the bright sky which lifts the image.


So I didn't actually mean to choose 3 photos which had an element of reflection, it just happened that way! Oh well, It was interesting to look firstly for photos with photos within them, and then to try to see different options. I think generally speaking I still like the original composition best, but that might change the more I look at these photos!