Cropping a Photo to Reduce Clutter
Here’s a picture of some Japanese rice paddies my mom sent me to do a photo critique on. The rice is a brilliant green. It’s a typical early summer scene in rural Japan and one can understand why she would have wanted to stop the car and get out to take a picture.
I think she’s chosen a great angle. She’s crouched down low enough for us to identify with the rice, and yet stayed high enough to emphasize the individual fields and the way they form a stair step pattern as the land contours up.
Since this is a photo critique, I’ll mention what I don’t like about this photo as well. One has to wonder though whether it was necessary to include the shadow of the car, and whether all the buildings in the background add to the composition. It’s a little unclear whether the subject is indeed the recently planted Japanese rice paddies or the buildings beyond them. The viewer is plunged into a state of uncertainty as to what they should be looking at. The buildings, the trees, the shadow of the car, the Japanese rice paddies and even the thunder clouds in the distance are all clamoring for attention.
This could be a prime example where cropping a photo to reduce clutter may be a good choice. What if we simply remove the car shadow and the apartment and square building, leaving only the one house? The pale red roof adds interest to the photo without fighting with the rice for attention and we have a much cleaner image after getting rid of the shadow and a few of the power line poles.
There are many instances where we end up snapping what we see and then when we get home we realize there’s a lot more going on than we had noticed at the time. Cropping a photo to reduce clutter is often better than simply hoping the viewer notices what we saw in the first place.
I personally like the cropped version of these Japanese rice paddies a lot better. What do you think?
More photo critique posts coming soon. Stay tuned. Also, leave a comment if you’d like to send in a shot for a photo critique.