To crop or not to crop that may be the question…

Often times when I’m out and about taking photographs I’m so caught up in the moment that I might lose sight of the small details. I find that I might try to put as much information as possible into frame and other times I may take it to the other extreme ending up with an image full of negative space. These are those if you blink you may miss it kind of moments where taking the time to fully compose your image is not an option.

Something that I personally as well as others have been guilty of is posting and editing an image as is and not taking the time to critically examine the image and see if there is something that can be done to make an image more successful and really stand out.

Below is an image that was shot at The Unisphere this image is uncropped and unedited

This image was then edited and cropped using the Camera+ app (it is on both the iPad and iPhone) as well as Snapseed (there is a computer version of this as well.

By cropping an image like this my goal was to draw the viewer into the image and having a stronger focal point vs having your eye wandering around not quite sure of what the subject matter is.

Below is another before and after example from the same day.

Ideally when cropping you want to try to avoid taking off body parts as it can be a bit jarring however in the above image I felt that the child was so engaging that the extra arm may be overlooked.

I would like to pose a question to the readers when taking photos do you frame and crop in your mind while taking shots or is it something that happens during your editing process?