[namllihs]

Cropped too tight?

[Angela]

Yes, I think so. I would have left a bit more at the bottom and included the mouth at least. The shot just looks a bit odd without that.

[Rob Barron]

Entirely agree with Angela. Too much empty forehead, let us have the mouth instead and the image is balanced and... cute Have you got more in the original Steve so could do a recrop maybe?

Cheers,
Rob

[fionaB]

yep i think so.. same as angela the face looks strange without the mouth and half the expression is lost

Fi

[nichpr]

Seems like I remember reading about the natural proportions of the face - how you can divide the face into thirds. ie. draw a horizontal line thru the eyes, bottom of the nose and chin. Perhaps the sketch artists, or portrait painters among us can expand on that.
Link: Proportions of the Human Head
and: Body Proportions in Art .......................

My point being - or question I pose here - is how that natural proportion works in concert with the rule of thirds and how it can be applied to this photo.
Anyone?

- Paul

[Rob Barron]

In terms of the rule of thirds, the eyes here are ok horizontally, each eye being on a third across the page. However, even at an angle they are either side of the halfway line and so we are seeing a lot more of the forehead than I feel we need to.

The natural proportions of the face and head are actually slightly at odds with the rule of thirds because the eyes are pretty much on a line across the middle of the head. That is why children's painted pictures of faces have a cute but unnatural feel because they nearly always put the eyes higher on the head than they actually are.

The mind is very good at predictive imagery in that it fills in what it can't see. If we only saw one eye in this picture, it wouldn't matter too much because we would imagine the other eye to be pretty much the same as the one we can see, ie it would be much the same size, shape and colour. Now, although we know this child's face has a mouth, we can't reference it properly because we have nothing to go on other than it is a young child and therefore presumably isn't large and doesn't have a beard underneath it! Is it thin, chubby, smiling, open, closed....? We cannot work it out using the information available to us in the picture and thus the picture has an incomplete feel to it.

I hope that makes sense, it's not as easy to explain in writing as it is in words face to face.

Cheers,
Rob

[namllihs]

Thanks for the comments, pretty much as I had thought, not every idea works and I know on this forum I will get honest critique. Unfortunately there is no way to recrop this as it is as taken, just resized. I will just have to take more shots of Naomi when she visits next week.

[Rob Barron]

I somehow have the feeling Steve that taking more pics of lovely Naomi will not be a great hardship I'll look forward to seeing more.

Cheers,
Rob

[Whipspeed]

Agree with other posters, too tight, I would have preferred less forehead and to be able to see the mouth.

[Markulous]

Hmmm, whilst I'll admit to a certain agreement with the prevailing mood, what about going a little way from the expected and usual?



Closer crop, mono, burn some detail, (over?)sharpen

Edit: Oops! It is way oversharpened and gone pixellated! Sorry, but you can see what I was after!

[silver]

monotone could work

the original question "Cropped too tight?" seems to require another question "too tight for what?"

the cropping is not the usual crop most people would see and therefore it is strange in that respect,. I think perhaps the answer is more about whether you like the image or does it say something to you,. you created the image I guess you saw something that spoke to you in it?

don't toss stuff because other ppl don't like it,. it would be hung on your wall not theirs

Sil

[silver]

just to play..



Sil

[namllihs]

Originally Posted by silver