Today I thought I’d share a little tip about creative cropping. Sometimes when I am processing an image, I get all excited about it but it lacks something, like the usual crop doesn’t work. It takes a bit of practise and a smidge of creativity to think outside the box and envision the true potential.

Let’s consider this image:

The subject is completely adorable (I ♥ newborn sessions!) and I like the pose, especially the positioning of his hands. This is the in-camera crop, which means this is how it came out of the camera as far as size and crop. I also noticed that I cut some of his toes on the right foot and that there is some lens distortion which causes disproportion in his body:

So I threw convention out the door, and tried a 20×10 crop instead of  customary 5×7 (I also converted this color image into a black and white to lend it a morel classic feel). This is the result:

By placing the subject closer to the right hand side of the frame, the image has more dynamic and visual interest- your eyes naturally rest on the baby’s face which is where the focus should be. The closer overhead crop took care of the distortion, while keeping important elements in (like toes and fingers).

Although I usually present a gallery with images cropped to a 5×7 ratio, I would include this one with  an ‘artistic note” suggesting the  20×10 crop. It would actually make a beautiful, modern canvas, a true work of art to be displayed in the home.

Creative cropping is as simple as that, thinking outside of the box.