Cropping And Society

I'm a photographer. As a photographer I'm repulsed by cropping.

As a Society we crop to much out of our photographs and our lives. Every thing has to be "perfect", well what if it wasn't wasn't meant to be perfect? What if it was meant to be what it is. Sit back and enjoy the big picture for a bit. If it's in frame maybe it was meant to be in frame. One of the big reasons I like looking at old photographs is because of what they didn't crop. They took the photograph for what it was. I love to see a photograph with lots of "stuff" in the frame, a box of cereal, a bottle of Pepsi, a 1977 Buick. It all just adds to the story for me.

Every time I document something I take my wide angle lens, I take in as much of the world and surroundings as I can. Personally I find photography as a window into the past, and if that's the only view I have why would I want to leave anything out? I find that background and foreground are just as important as the subject in my work. I feel like there are too many one dimensional photographs as well as people in the world today. Enjoy your environment, experience your environment, sell your environment. There is no bad environment to take a photograph, there are however bad framing, composure, and exposure.

Don't worry about finding the perfect place to start photographing before you get started, the perfect place to photograph will find you as you work. Take your time, smell the daisies, and you'll notice something interesting as your smelling those daisies.

If you must crop, crop with your lens.