Cropping part 3

The third photograph I selected was one that I entered into an internal digital image competition at Guilford Photosoc in autumn of 2009 of an orchard with dandelions and pear trees in blossom. The external judge considered that the image had not been appropriately cropped and awarded it a relatively poor score. Hence, I thought that this image would be a good one to use in this exercise to see if I could follow his advice and the ideas I have picked up so far on this course.

I took several pictures of this orchard field as I was attracted by the carpet of dandelions which were a brilliant yellow in the afternoon sunlight, set off by a blue sky above. I took a variety of photographs trying to arrange the pear trees in the frame to act as points of interest. After juggling with various versions, the image I entered into the competition was this one.

My reasons at the time for believing that this was the best picture were:-

- I considered that the dandelions should be the focus of attention of the picture and I therefore included as broad an expanse of dandelions as possible.

- The dark fir trees and hedge behind the pear trees helped the white blossom to stand out more strongly. In none of the pictures did the placement of the pear trees create a strong visual impact. I cropped the image so that the two pear trees were a little off centre.

- I included blue sky and clouds in the top one third of the frame, as omitting the sky, in my view, resulted in an image which failed to convey the beauty of the afternoon scene.

However, the judge considered that the picture lacked impact and needed to be cropped differently. He suggested that:-

- the right hand pear tree should be treated as the main subject.

- it was unnecessary to include such a large area of dandelions in the foreground. A smaller area of dandelions would be just as effective in the picture frame.

- the background hedge was too messy and should be omitted as far as possible.

In this exercise, I have tried out his suggestions as well as revisiting my own ideas.

This is the first version following the judge's suggestions:

I can see his point regarding the unnecessary foreground and background. I nevertheless found the end result rather bland and static.

In a second version, I included the trunk and part of the second tree to break up the symmetry and add another visual element to the picture:

I feel that this framing is more visually interesting as the eye has reason to wander from one tree to another.

I also attempted to crop the image in a way that would make the dandelions the main visual element without making the image too plain.

Working from the same same picture, I selected an area from the left hand centre of the original frame to include the expanse of dandelions in the foreground:

I included only the lower parts of the pear trees, one in the centre and one in the top right corner. The fir trees provide a dark area on the right hand side which I think attracts attention and draws the eye away from the pear trees. The sky is barely seen in the top left of the picture frame. The image is simpler but more effective than the version I entered in the competition.