MomShots

Sounds like Martha Stewart, huh?  :)  I do like Martha.  She has a lot of great information.

Enough about Martha.  This is not a Martha post…

This is a post about cropping your photos to enhance or create a focal point.

I know most people know what a focal point is, but in case you are not sure, my definition of it is the area where your eye is directed to look.

As a photographer we are like the director of a movie.  In a sense we are like Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Ang Lee or Nora Ephron in our own right.  We get to decide where we want the viewer’s eye to go.  

There can be multiple focal points as well.  You can say look here and now move your eye over here. 

Here’s a little assignment for you:

Part A:  Open up a few of your favorite photos and figure out how your eye moves in each one.  Can you pin point a specific focal point?  Are there a few that direct your eye in a sequence? 

 On this photo my eye moves from Gar’s face to their hands and out with the ball.  In kind of a story telling fashion.

I believe that Magnus is the focal point in this photo.  My eye is drawn through the trail of snow directly to his little body and that’s where I stop.  I can take my eye off this trail and look around and the other elements in the photo, but I always go back to Magnus.

Part B:  Open up a few of your not so favorite photos and see if you can find a focal point.

This one has no clearly defined focal point. Is it the point of the shadow? Is it the two boys? Is it the horizon? 

Where is the focal point.  Where is my eye directed?  Is it Ulysses sitting in the snow? It it my sister standing close to where the curb is pointing? Is it the power box in the background?

I think this is one of the major things that makes a snapshot.  I think that in most snapshots you don’t have a clear visual path.  When I look at a photo like this, my eye is darting all over the image trying to decide where to land.  What is the most important thing that I want to stop and hang out on for a while?  That’s what my eye is thinking (or would be if it could think).

Onto Cropping:

My Sister in Law, Thorey took this beautiful picture of her husband holding their new baby.  I love her sweet little face peeking out.  I also really like the light that is coming from above and shining on his hair and her face.

I love this photo but I find the walls and Brian’s shirt a little bit distracting.  I know the focal point is Charlotte’s sweet little face but my eyes get a tiny bit distracted.  This is by no means a bad photo, it just has a little bit of extra stuff in it that could easily be trimmed out.

So I asked Thorey for a copy of it and then I cropped it a little bit.  Ok, I cropped it a lot a bit.  I really wanted Charlotte and Brian’s heads to fill the whole frame.  I tried to balance the black or negative space between Charlotte’s ear and the edge of the frame with the negative space between Brian’s shoulder and the edge of the frame - so they were kind of centered.  

I also added a very, very slight black vignette around the edges.  I think it tones down Brian’s shirt a tiny bit and puts the focus on Charlie and Brian.

So… the moral of the story is, sometimes a photo that has a vague or confusing focal point or has distracting elements can be enhanced by cropping it to only include the items you want the viewer to see.  As directors we need to think about where we want our viewers’ eyes to be focused.

It is OK to not have the focal point right in the center of the photo.  It is OK to have multiple focal points, in a story telling fashion.  It’s OK to do pretty much whatever you want.  

You are the director, after all!

Cut!

That’s a wrap!