As for film - no, I don't crop. For some weird reason I can't bring myself to crop a scanned frame. It is what it is.
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:45 (ten years ago) link
http://i.imgur.com/xP2Qwaz.jpg
The original puddle jumper
THe part on the left was part of the fence he was shooting through
http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/derriere-la-gare-saint-lazare/
Apparently one of only two of his photos that were ever cropped
Like we could prove otherwise though
He probably burns all his contact sheets
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:48 (ten years ago) link
And of course the version we all know now crops out the bottom 1/3 of the picture as well
http://i.imgur.com/gHIb5hd.jpg
Gordon Parks shoots the Invisible Man, Crops
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:50 (ten years ago) link
the most reproduced portrait of all time was cropped
http://i.imgur.com/sHiyNhL.jpg
― ᶓ͠סּᴥ͠סּᶔ ᶓͼ᷆ₓͼ᷇ᶔ (gr8080), Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:51 (ten years ago) link
Cropping was arguably better in the film days
You'd just move the enlarger head closer
Bigger grain yeah sure but you could sometimes get more detail too
Cropping digital is okay if you have a large source file and you're gonna show at 1024x768 or some other web resolution
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:52 (ten years ago) link
when i see something that visibly doesn't conform to a common ratio i am raising an eyebrow
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:53 (ten years ago) link
bigger grain would actually probably be an argument for cropping for me
the same way deep overexposure + then scanning can get you something you can't get otherwise
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 21:58 (ten years ago) link
Fucking hell, the original negative
http://i.imgur.com/8Ib5avK.jpg
I'm glad to see HCB underexposed too
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:01 (ten years ago) link
You can think of anti-cropping people as being photography's rockists
But given all the other ways we manipulate images
Color balance curves printing big small whatever
Intentionally overexposing underexposing shooting expired film cross processing shooting movie film
Cropping is just one more tool in the kit
Nobody has to know
It can be your secret
Take it with you to the grave
Destroy your hard drive when you die
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:03 (ten years ago) link
On my tombstone it will say
He was a cropper
I am not ashamed
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:05 (ten years ago) link
Now with all that having been said
I have never cropped a single image in my life
yeah it just goes against my instinct. I've done it a few times and then later replaced the cropped with the uncropped.
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:08 (ten years ago) link
honestly it just makes life easier too
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:09 (ten years ago) link
ha ha 乒乓 you are pretty much the disappointed paternal voice in my head ruefully shaking his head at my first inclinations toward cropping. like you appreciate the arguments but also something will have changed if i do it. i just can't even look at the disfigured skies that my lack of care has wrought anymore. it's like the guy in the godfather's unbeautified daughter.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:09 (ten years ago) link
i feel like i am applying for one of those licenses that means you can smoke marijuana in public because you have ptsd & so should be exempted from having to comply with certain social mores. the idea of cropping to me is so awkward, like it is a lie. didn't alice notley say the wrong word in a story is a lie in the middle of the page. i can't even make myself crop the selvages.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:11 (ten years ago) link
you are allowed to crop, but it must be done on the negative, with scissors.accept this ruling.
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:12 (ten years ago) link
that's perfect
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:14 (ten years ago) link
mentally consulting robert frank's career to create parameters for everyday life
alternately, now that you know about your lens deficiency, next time you use it you must tape a piece of cardboard to the offending side.
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:17 (ten years ago) link
i feel like when i look at my photos i'm already disappointed by how much i missed getting in to the frame in the first place
i want to put the whole world in to every shot more or less
― ᶓ͠סּᴥ͠סּᶔ ᶓͼ᷆ₓͼ᷇ᶔ (gr8080), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:18 (ten years ago) link
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, November 21, 2013 5:14 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark
This is how I live tbh
If it helps you to be a uncropper while following robert frank
Remember that frank did not think the negative was sacrosanct
As evidenced by his later work in nova scotia
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:22 (ten years ago) link
What you need to do I think is to take a roll that you have developed
And eat it
Or burn it
Then and maybe then can you start to crop
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:23 (ten years ago) link
Tbh I remember reading that robert frank had arranged with Steidl
To publish a new edition of the americans
With all new crops
Probably the most disappointed I have ever felt with Frank
Not because of the cropping but because I did not think the new crops could bring anything to the images that we did not already know
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:24 (ten years ago) link
I don't think I necessarily pre-visualise in 3:2. Sometimes I know I only want a sliver of what I can capture from where I am.
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:24 (ten years ago) link
i think more & more that the less you are taking a photograph of - "of" - the better. i just was at the library looking at eggleston & koenig's (lovely) double exposure, i have maybe a new favourite eggleston (no i don't), this 2004 shot of half a phonebox and just some yellow canvasing in madrid. like obviously with W E the deal about ~life continuing beyond the frame~ is popular wisdom but also he just so delicately unites everything that's happening, pinpoints the essence & needs little more.
i have replaced my lens fwiw. i have a 35mm now. i miss the kind of innate hyper closeness of my 50mm, like it has come to just represent the act of literally focusing on a thing to me. but i am figuring it out.
i think frank has fucked with the crops used in editions of the americans at least twice?? usually erring toward revealing the full frame iirc. there's a section in the THE AMERICANS: THE ~~RE-MIX~~ deluxe book about it
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:28 (ten years ago) link
i think more & more that the less you are taking a photograph of - "of" - the better
don't tell that to friedlander
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:29 (ten years ago) link
i think wrt anti-zoom sentiment i feel there is definitely some kind of poetic (don't say truth don't say truth) righteousness to just dealing with what you confront through your camera. to crop for the juice seems to deny some basic idea of what photography is, to strive for some other kind of image making practice.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:29 (ten years ago) link
i feel like friedlander is with me on that! from his pics at least. like peak friedlander is, at least in the context of his time, not taking pictures "of" anything significant ..? excluding madonna nudes obviously
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:30 (ten years ago) link
Right, that's it. I'm not cropping for a month.
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:32 (ten years ago) link
I took less and less to mean fitting content in. feel like friedlander stuffs content anything, regardless of significance
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:35 (ten years ago) link
Though my eldest might be happier if I just put away the camera altogether ("Stop taking pictures, Daddy!")... uncropped, 50mm prime, btw...
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2880/10800776133_e90bcf37af_c.jpg
― Michael Jones, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:35 (ten years ago) link
I mean like
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/100906_friedlander-3_p465.jpg
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:36 (ten years ago) link
The A-frame is the crop
― 乒乓, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:38 (ten years ago) link
So is the sideview mirror
― chinavision!, Thursday, November 21, 2013 6:35 PM (34 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
yeah i guess i am leaving this open & hoping to just trade of its (robert) bressonian poetic ambiguity but yeah i think i mean in terms of significance or identification. like there is a sort of higher ground of aphasic ignorance toward subject or content that pays off, the point at which you're totally just recording constellations of space like leiter did. i maybe don't know friedlander well enough to parse him in this argument but he has the kind of rephrasing democratic thing down enough to me that it fits with what i feel, like he is uniting what's there rather than trying to just capture an object.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:39 (ten years ago) link
not holding up friedlander as a non-cropper, just sayin, he puts a lot of stuff in his pictures
― chinavision!, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:45 (ten years ago) link
I crop film scans slightly to get them back into 3:2.
I crop digital a lot less than I used to. I've started finding images look a little odd to me if I crop them, but i'm sure if i stepped away from the computer and went back the next day i wouldn't notice.
I certainly don't hve any purist stance against it. I make plenty of other adjustments to my photos.
― michaellambert, Thursday, 21 November 2013 22:46 (ten years ago) link
michael btw i am using your cropping pass for the next month just to try it on for size, let's trade back in dec.
― love mike love (ko komo) (schlump), Thursday, 21 November 2013 23:05 (ten years ago) link
I can't believe how expensive a roll of provia is now
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:21 (ten years ago) link
How much??
― 乒乓, Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:31 (ten years ago) link
close to $20 in some places!
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:45 (ten years ago) link
then factor in e6 processing charges you can spend around $1 per frame
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:46 (ten years ago) link
Damn
I bet you can find some cheap-ish places in Chicago to process? Or are you still doing mail order
― 乒乓, Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:48 (ten years ago) link
actually i still prefer cross-processing
until recently i had to go to labs that would do it but still charge the slide film rate
but i found a walgreens near me that as long as i'm dropping off a bunch of c-41 at the same time, i've been able to sneak a roll or two of slide in w/o getting caught
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:51 (ten years ago) link
i need to get a good scanner and start developing all my B&W at home
for some reason drug stores here charge ~$10 for a develop & scan to cd, compared to ~$5 in hawaii
and costco stopped fucking w/ film entirely around the time i moved
― |$̲̅(̲̅ιοο̲̅)̲̅$̲̅| (gr8080), Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:54 (ten years ago) link
Time for home scanning indeed. You get a little more control then too.
― chinavision!, Sunday, 1 December 2013 15:57 (ten years ago) link
Spending some $$ on a scanner now can save you $$$$ over hundreds of rolls