To crop or not to crop

To the left (possibly below if you’re on a mobile device) is a sheet of 10×8 photographic paper. I laid a strip of 35mm negatives across the top from which you can see that the 35mm negative needs to be enlarged by a factor of over 35x to fit on the paper.

With such a large surface area to cover it makes sense to use as much of the negative as possible without cropping in and losing valuable real estate.

I do like to get things right in-camera but am no purist as at the end of the day the final result is the most important thing. As we’ve seen though the enlargement of a 35mm negative to a 10″x8″ print is quite a jump. So, when printing the negative below my initial thought was to print the full frame.

Left, the test wedge and right the first print

Now, this image is 100% reflection in a restaurant window. There are no external elements, everything is on or beyond the glass frontage of the building. Once I had the first print on the desk in front of me my eye was constantly being dragged to the top of the frame. Firstly, it’s bright so naturally attracts the eye. Secondly, that part is sky as you can see and the filth on the window rendered as a not-so-nice texture on the print. I decided therefore to crop the image to eliminate both distractions. I could of course have burnt in the sky but with that jagged roofline the pragmatic choice was to crop.

In the end I think the pragmatic decision to crop also gave a stronger composition too so win-win.

Sometimes I will find myself in a situation where I cannot make the composition I want directly in-camera so then I compose with a view to cropping later. The scene below is a case in point although I did include the whole negative when making the first full test exposure just in case. I was using a Bronica SQ-A which produces negatives 6cm x 6cm on 120 roll film. These are considerably bigger than a 35mm negative so the enlargement required is not as large, nevertheless I try to avoid cropping where possible.

Taken expecting to crop, I did however print the full negative before deciding my gut instinct was sound

So, there we have it. Two images strengthened by cropping, one a 35mm negative and the other 6x6cm on medium format film. What’s your thoughts? If you are a digital worker does the question of cropping become a moot point owing to the large sensor sized in modern digital cameras? Perhaps cropping considerations are greater for us folk who still insist on printing in a darkroom*.

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• for transparency I also use digital cameras and print on an inkjet printer from time to time which includes film images that have been digitised with one of my digital cameras. I therefore embrace all three “camps” – digital, hybrid and traditional.