Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
If you’ve ever been to an aquarium, you’ve probably spent longer than you expected staring at the jellyfish exhibit. What is it about these creatures that evokes such a strong sense of both curiosity and serenity? It’s so easy to lose track of time watching them float seemingly without a care.
This image isn’t particularly terrible by any means but I believe the original artist missed out on a good opportunity to crop. Notice that there is a lot of redundant negative space in the empty ocean behind the jellyfish on the right. Additionally, the jellies in the upper left corner don’t particularly add enough to the photo to warrant their inclusion.
There’s an old quote by photojournalist Robert Capa which gets passed around a lot that “if your photos aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” While I’m sure there was a physical barrier preventing the photographer from getting any closer, I think a tighter crop could have brought the subject closer and made this photo better. Luckily, the original image was so large in size that it could support a closer crop.
To crop this photo I brought the focus back to the jellyfish which were originally on the right side of the photograph. Following the rule of thirds, I placed the jellyfish as closely as I could to the lower left intersection of lines and I have completely removed the smaller jellyfish from the canvas. This tighter crop brought the jellyfish closer to the viewer allowing for more detail. The swirling tentacles drifting counterclockwise from the upper right quadrant creates a more dynamic image. It’s almost as if the jellyfish has just floated into view.
