Crop Workshop

Ok, so a few weeks ago we were exploring different ways of cropping images and how it changed the ways we perceived the subject(s) of the photos - some examples below...

Close-up detail:
(+) A pretty strong crop - captures the overall feel of the picture in that the angle of the wrist suggests the nonchalance of the subject, while the gun obviously carries the gang-culture connotations.
(-) By cropping out the masked face, image loses some of the sense of menace.
(!) In a way this crop could also be 'crop to define'...

Wide angle horizontal:
(+) Cropping to only a few of the riders makes the shot more personal and accessible.
(-) The angle of the crop has lost the bike of the main rider making the image less clear and effective as a whole, also lost the sense of a whole load of cyclists together.
(!) Does the angle of the crop suggest movement..?

Narrow angle vertical:
(+) The relatively narrow crop manages to include both the artist and the sculpture.
(-) The crop is perhaps a little too restrictive and doesn't include enough of the artwork to give a sense of what it's about.
(!) The angle of the crop hints towards the upwards movement suggested by the artwork itself.

Depersonalise:
(+) Pretty successful and simple depersonalisation, achieved by editing out the face of the model.
(-) Lacks dynamism and excitement.
(!) Looks like an advert for Veet/female razors/shoes?

Crop to abstract:
(+) Retains enough information from the source photo to capture the feel and mood of the original, but omits enough to abstract the image.
(-) Cropped boxes don't relate to each other enough to easily make sense of the image - too abstracted.
(!) Perhaps if the crop had used larger boxes in the foreground and smaller boxes in the background it would have created the feeling of perspective and given a type of logic to the image, thus making it abstract but more accessible?

Crop to define:
(+) Small square crop does away with unneccesary info - focusses the image as being political.
(-) Perhaps would have been better to include buildings in the distance to create a sense of someone separated from the land in the distance, thereby accentuating the polical impetus behind the image?
(!) Does it feel odd that the subject is 'facing backwards' in the photo (ie, going against our natural instinct of reading left to right)?

Make look distant:
(+) A pretty intriguing/haunting crop.
(-) Has actually had the opposite effect and made everything look closer, rather than more distant.
(!) Could work for a 'discreet' crop.

Enhance emotional impact:
(+) Effective use of circular crop to focus the viewer's attention intently on the laughing subject; scrapping all the unnecessary information has clarified the meaning/emotion behind the image.
(-) Should have made the crop higher res!
(!) Cropped image looks like a toothpaste ad?

Narrow vertical:
(+) A really striking image that captures the viewer's attention immediately.
(-) Cropped image has lost the positive impetus behind the orginal.
(!) By only including part of the subject's face it creates the impression of 'spying' through crack in a door, heightening the excitement/tension in the resulting image.

Discreet:
(+) Achieves its aim in that the partially included figure in the foreground looks like he's trying to avoid being in the shot and thus make himself discreet.
(-) Crop creates a lot of dead space in the main body of the image - lacks focus.
(!) Crop has made image look accidental.

Bold exciting:
(+) Shape of the crop creates visual interest and excitement and also focuses attention on the most expressive of the faces in the shot.
(-) Crop shape also includes a lot of extraneous information which means the resulting image is not as clear and concise as it could be.
(!) Effect created is quite different to the other crop on this image (narrow vertical); while this has a celebratory/excited feel, the narrow vertical has a slightly more sinister edge...