Cropping
Posted on February 1, 2016
There aren’t many photographs I take that don’t go unedited – especially those that make their way onto this blog – and almost all of those begin with cropping (and straightening where necessary, of course). I agree with Cee very strongly on the importance of cropping: as she writes, it can make a mediocre photo good and a good one great.
(NB: The images in this post have only been cropped, with no other post-processing. In this way, it’s possible to isolate the impact of cropping alone from the overall editing process.)
Eliminating Distractions
This first image was taken from the observation lift that provides panoramic views over Sarlat. The roofs are interesting and colourful but (a) you don’t need to see all of them to get the picture, so to speak and (b) although it’s a medieval town that doesn’t mean that they don’t have access to modern technology. Like satellite dishes; lots of satellite dishes. The cropped version removes all but one (partially obscured) dish – which could be eliminated altogether with further editing, as well as cars, streetlights etc.
As another example of removing distractions, here’s a picture of a nice foxglove, which doesn’t really need the roofline behind it.
Cropping for Composition
Cropping can also be helpful in improving the composition of an image, as in this photograph of the distinctive seedpods of the ‘monnaie du pape’ (‘Honesty’) plant, which in the cropped version are placed on a ‘Rule-of-thirds’ intersection.
Finding a new image
Sometimes, close cropping can reveal a ‘new’ image nested inside the original that isn’t immediately obvious – as in this view from Oradour-sur-Glane.
Taking more than one picture
And finally, as per Cee’s advice always to take more than one photograph, here are two shots of a set of decanters and glasses from a museum in Sarlat. The second is not a crop of the first, but just a close-up: same subject, completely different image.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Vibrant
Posted on January 30, 2016
This display of individually hand-painted plates outside a shop in Sarlat certainly meets the brief for this week’s challenge of ‘Vibrant’.
Before & After: St Mary’s Church, Beverley
Posted on January 29, 2016
Another ecclesiastical subject this week. However, this time it’s an interior – of the nave and high altar of St Mary’s church in Beverley. A lot of people are aware that Beverley has a Minster (basically, a cathedral without a bishop) and you could be forgiven for assuming that this was it, given its monumental scale and rich decoration. However, it’s ‘just’ a Parish Church.
Before
This photograph looks down the main aisle of the church to the altar beyond the rood screen. Apart from the fact that it’s a bit wonky, it displays one of the most common ‘technical’ problems with photographing church interiors: the external light source, particularly when shining through a stained glass window.
After
The first thing – as ever – was to straighten and crop the image. The pews at the bottom of the original weren’t bringing much to the party and the columns on each side provided sufficient in the way of leading lines.
The bright sun shining through the windows high up on the right meant that some of the stonework of the columns on the left was blown out, while the ceiling between the two arches seen in the original was very dark. The latter I dealt with by the simple means of cropping it out (which also took care of the windows) and I applied a graduated filter effect on the left side of the image to claw back some of the detail that was lost in the original.
The second source of bright light was through the stained glass. I reduced the glare by moving the Highlights and Whites sliders all the way over to the left.
The image still had a ‘cold’ overall cast, so I boosted both Clarity and Vibrance, which gave a much warmer tone.
The key colours in the image are obviously blue, orange and yellow. Reducing the Luminance and boosting Saturation (a little) made these ‘pop’ a bit more as well as bringing out still further detail, especially in the painted ceiling.
Bridgework
Posted on January 28, 2016
This photograph is a crop from a photograph I took from a bateau-mouche cruising down the River Seine in Paris and is of the underside of a bridge. It seems to fulfil the ‘lines and angles’ requirement of Cee’s challenge for this week.
It’s an interesting optical illusion that, although the image is a perfect rectangle the right vertical looks longer than the left.
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Lines and Angles
Thursday Doors: Petra
Posted on January 28, 2016
Since I started participating in Norm’s Thursday Doors challenge, I’ve featured quite a few old and weathered examples, but this one beats them all. It stands in the middle of the Siq, the long narrow path that leads to the main entrance of Petra, and is well over 2,000 years old. I suppose arguably it’s a doorway rather than a door, but it’s still worth looking at.
Thursday Doors 28 January 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Optimistic
Posted on January 23, 2016
‘A Vendre’: For Sale. Ladies and gentlemens hairdressers, Perfumery and Angling supplies.
Yes, well….good luck with that.
Before & After: Cathedral of San Marco, Venice
Posted on January 22, 2016
Sometimes you can’t get exactly the shot you want and need to rely on post-processing to realise your original idea.
Before
This was taken in Saint Mark’s Square in Venice and is of the side of the Cathedral. It’s always crowded there, so for every kind of reason it makes no sense to be packing a long zoom lens. I was interested in the detail of the recess in the centre of the image, but this was the closest that my 24-70mm zoom lens could get.
After
The first actions to take were to straighten the image and crop out all distractions – notably the scaffolding. It also allowed for an aesthetically attractive symmetry in the final image.
As can be seen from the shadows in the original image, the sun was shining very brightly and it was close to noon, so the whole image looks ‘bleached’. Fiddling with the overall exposure didn’t produce any helpful results, but taking down the Highlights, Shadows and Whites sliders brought out a lot more subtle detail in the stonework and also had some positive impact on the colours.
However, I resorted to the individual colour adjustments to reach this final version. I boosted the Saturation of the three principal colours – orange, yellow and blue – but by trial and error I found that a greater impact was made by adjusting the Luminance – increasing orange and yellow, reducing blue.
Spiral steeple
Posted on January 21, 2016
Cee’s Black & White challenge this week is anything that begins with the letter ‘S’. So how about the spiral steeple of St Saviour’s church in the town of Rochechouart? Shown against the sky.
Thursday Doors: Home (before and after)
Posted on January 21, 2016
This week we’re not just close to home; we’re at home. We bought what you could reasonably describe as a ‘doer-upper’ back in 2005. It was, as the agent’s particulars stated, in trés mauvais état – a very bad state.
This was the back door leading into what is now the kitchen:
Inside there was a tree growing out of the wall where the log-burning stove now sits. The whole interior has been effectively rubbed out and started again. We’ve also made a few changes to the exterior:
Thursday Doors 21 January 2016
Weekly Photo Challenge: Alphabet
Posted on January 16, 2016
As soon as I saw this week’s challenge, I knew exactly which image I wanted to use. From the windowsill in my grandsons’ bedroom:
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