Leading space?

[M.M.]

Anybody else remember the Kodak^tm film strips used to teach photography in high school?  One of the six tips for composition (along with the rule of thirds, "diagonals are dynamic," etc.) was to leave leading space.  If you were shooting a sprinter or a race car, you'd leave some room between it and the edge of frame so visually the subject would have somewhere to move into.

I though of leading space again while looking at a fwe posts where the photographers have cropped moving subjects to within a pixel or two of its nose and tail.  While I'm all for filling the frame with a subject, I feel almost claustrophibic looking at these shots.  And it's not a subtle reaction on my part, either -- it's almost an "aw, you wrecked the whole photo!" thing.  That's a strong response for me, and it's certainly not a fair judgement of the photos or photographers involved.

Am I nuts?  No, don't answer that question, answer this one instead: is anybody else bothered by really tight croping of a moving subject, even if not to the same irrational extent as I am?  Or, put another way, which of these samples looks better to you?

-M.M.

[bcradio]

I agree, the first sample is more pleasing to the eye for me.... 

[skippyscage]

you know that's something I used to do, but when I first came here everyone was cropping to the edge and, like a sheep, I followed suit. 

we never used to be able to crop anyway (film, slide) unless we were printing ourselves... I'm going to revisit this, as today, funnily enough I did crop some with "space"

thanks Mark - more work 

 

[aero-engineer]

I agree, the first sample is more pleasing to the eye for me.... 

I second that.
Of course, what do I know?   

Kevin
aero-engineer

[gdedward99s]

yeah, if you remember there was a good reason for leaving some space beside aesthetics...
For 35mm film, filling the negative from edge to edge won't fit on 8x10 inch photo paper. 

[RichardVM]

I like shooting tight, and I don't mind filling the frame. For me, either something between the two shots, or the similar framing as the second, but with a little more room on the left (nose) side of the shot. If you had to cut off part of the wingtip to do so, that wouldn't really bother me. I've never seen the reason to have the entire airplane in every frame.

Richard

[Jez]

Am I nuts?  No, don't answer that question, answer this one instead: is anybody else bothered by really tight croping of a moving subject, even if not to the same irrational extent as I am?  Or, put another way, which of these samples looks better to you?

I'm not a big fan of tight crops. The 1st shot gets my vote. I have cropped tightly before, but it would usually be because I wanted to remove a distraction that would be difficult to clone out.

[k5083]

Airplane buffs and spotters who have close to zero aesthetic interest in photography frequently fill the frame right to the edge when shooting, because that maximizes the size and detail of the airplane in the image.  They tend to regard any extra space at the edges as waste.  It is not so much a matter of cropping (which, of course, does not increase detail in the surviving part of the image) as tight framing in the first place.  On airliners.net you see this philosophy in action a lot.

This community is more oriented to the image in its own right, rather than merely as a window onto an airplane.  Although "composition" in 99% of ground-to-air airplane photography is so rudimentary that it barely deserves the name, a few aesthetic conventions do come into play.  One of them is that an airplane that takes up about 80% of the width of the frame looks more comfortable than one that takes up 95%, and another is that there ought to be a little more space in front of the plane than behind. 

In other communities that are even more oriented to the image vs. the airplane than this one, it is more common to have airplanes that take up less than 50% of the width of the frame and are situated in some kind of situational context, or are shown in extreme closeup.

So I see the views on this question as occupying places on a continuum of interest in airplane vs. interest in image, with fencecheckers mostly clustering around the middle of the distribution.

August

[RichardVM]

Three images based on Mark's first image, with permission from Mark. These are something more like what I would be shooting for in regard to a tighter shot.

When I'm telling a story, I'll use loose images with more background to help create establishing shots. I actually shoot quite a few images with a small subject with a lot of clear background to leave room for text for an Ad or a bleed with text overlay. With an individual aircraft against sky, I would rather shoot tight and make the image about the aircraft than the sky. I do shoot images where I very intentionally make the aircraft small in the frame, but there needs to be a reason for doing so. Even if I shoot tight, I generally leave some room for the aircraft to "fly into," giving it some room.

Personally I don't understand the aversion some people have to letting an airplane touch the edge of the frame, as though it were an electrified fence or something. Shooting like that makes everything look the same. The same centered images with every aircraft covering 80% of the frame. It becomes far too static. Let an airplane touch the edge of the frame. It makes for a more dynamic image instead of trapping it within the frame.

That's my take on it, but I'm one of the first to admit there aren't many "rules" that I won't break. And as most of you have seen, I like to frame tightly. Does it come back to bite me occasionally? You bet. In my book that is better than coming back with a lot of "safe" but uninspired images.

Richard

[GeoffS]

For a full-frame shot, I like the first of Richard's croppings best.  A little space in front and above (with some nice "cloud action") along with a nice diagonal to "pull" your eye from the lower-RH corner up to the nose of the plane.

The second looks odd (to me).  I think it's the excess space below that tries to pull my attention away from the plane and down to the empty lower section.

The third one is a nice tight shot. 

I'm also a fan of tight crops.  I'll tend to shoot a few "safe" shots of everything (for CYA) and then concentrate on attempting more "interesting" stuff (whether it's closeups, slow-speed, foreground/background, or ...).

FWIW, I regularly seem to spend a number of iterations choosing my favorite way to crop a shot.  I tend to cycle back and forth in the History moving the bounding box and choosing Image->Crop to see the effect; sometimes by very small amounts.  It's often not one single thing that make or breaks a cropping for me.  Often I'll try balancing the space around the subject with positioning one of more major elements on a diagonal, at one of the Rule-of-thirds "Power Points", or to get some other compositional effect.

All good fun! 

Cheers,

Geoff S.

[Jez]

Sorry Richard, but I don't like the framing/cropping of 1st or 2nd shots. They look too much like the wing was unintentionally cropped and look unbalanced to my eye. The 3rd crop is OK - The focus is obviously on the front of the aircraft, so it looks like the rear was intentionally kept out of the frame.

[RichardVM]

No worries Jez. You would rather see the extra foot of wing and more sky. I would rather focus on the aircraft more to see plenty of detail and don't care to see a lot of (in my opinion) superfluous sky. That's the beauty of differing opinions, we can have a lot of variety in shooting styles and images.

Personally, I don't much like #2 either, but it helps to show some other options. I've had a number of editors choose similar shots because they like to overlay text at the bottom of the page, or it fits the layout for some other reason, like inserting smaller detail shots at the bottom of a page. Shooting for publication makes photographers think differently about their composition. I have to shoot a lot of verticals for covers or other layout considerations. As most of us know, airplanes don't necessarily lend themselves to vertical composition, but I find I sometimes come up with great shots by pushing myself to work a little harder and explore something I may not otherwise pursue.

Richard

[Jez]

Funnily enough Richard, If I had to choose between 1 and 2 and I would choose 2. The high location of the aircraft in shot 2 accentuates that the shot is taken from below. For me, I have more of an acceptance of an aircraft positioned high in the frame if it is shot from below. The low position of the aircraft in shot 1 combined with the fact that it is obvious that it is shot from below almost creates an uncomfortable optical illusion for me.

[RichardVM]

I can certainly appreciate that. Some part of my mind accepts the image to be of a landing aircraft and thinks that logically (not many parts of my brain work logically) it should be closer to the bottom of the frame since it is landing. I find it fascinating how people process the same image differently.

Richard

[Roger]

I like either a really tight crop, with wings cut off and attention drawn to the pilot and cockpit/center part of the pane, or a loose crop, like Mark's first photo. 

A cut off wing tip or nose looks like an accident to me, and a plane almost touching the edges of the frame doesn't work for me either.

Roger