To crop or not to crop

[Simon 54]

I'd thought I'd share this story with you all.  I took several pictures of the full moon coming up behind St Michaels Mount in Cornwall last year. This one I uploaded as was, and then with a crop as I thought the ship spoiled the picture.  As well as putting out with Alamy live news I also sometimes tweet my pics and sell to the local papers. The WMN  put the picture on the whole of the front page including the ship.  Shortly afterwards I had people emailing me asking to buy prints - all were related to the boat in some way, either the owners, crew etc.

 

[John Mitchell 3,660]

All I ever remove are dust spots, stray tree branches protruding into the frame, birds and the like.

 

Personally, I'm not a fan of manipulating editorial images. In fact, I find it scary.

Edited February 15, 2019 by John Mitchell

[Jill Morgan 904]

When I first looked at it, I thought the boat makes the picture and wouldn't have considered cropping it out.

 

Jill

[domf 55]

I think that the fact that the moon, castle (Church?) and boat are in alignment, and the contrast of colours of the yellow moon and red boat make the image interesting. If you remove the boat then it becomes one of millions of photos of just the full moon. 

 

[Tom Reichner 12]

On 07/02/2019 at 04:30, Simon said:

I..... I thought the ship spoiled the picture.   

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I agree.  Sure for sales and general human interest, the ship is the main feature. But personally, I dislike things that are manmade.  Buildings, streets, automobiles, contrails, people, and yes, ships ..... I think they are ugly and distracting.  I don't want these things in my photos, because to me, photography is about showcasing the things that I think are beautiful, and only nature (devoid of man's presence) is beautiful to me. 

 

So the way I would've shot this would be much tighter, with just the moon, the sky immediately around it, and the very top of the ridges on the horizon (the part of the ridge top that doesn't have any lights or buildings in it).

 

Of course, this valuation is based on my own preferences and does not consider the marketability of the image.  Stuff with people and manmade things always sells better than straight nature.  I guess most people like ugly stuff in their pics

[Stephen Dwyer 12]

I think the thing that we all come to terms with as contributors is that we cant second guess the market. Sometimes yes you can shoot a subject because you are confident it will sell and yes we can follow the requests from Alamy but the more I shoot, the less I am surprised by what people want images of (e.g. storm water drain). So, my view is keep the boat in the image and shoot another one without and upload both.