compositions

This is a photo I took on my trip to Norway in June of 2024. Norway is steeped in folklore and stories of mountain Trolls is prevalent. When my companions and I climbed Mount Floyen in Bergen, Norway, the park and its signs, leaned heavily into these stories, warning climbers to beware of the trolls as they hiked. Most of the hike was beautiful and uneventful- besides the trials of climbing a mountain obviously. But as my companions and I finally descended the mountain we caught a glimpse of this big form staring down at us from the cliffside above. The original captures the immense climb that separated us and kind of down plays the face my friends and I thought we saw- it could be mistaken as just a big boulder. In the crop I focused on zooming in on the face so that it can be seen, but still capturing that it is staring down at us by focusing in on the giant tree in the foreground.

So where the original could be mistaken as just a rock- kind of like the blurry Loch Ness Monster Photo, the cropped version seems to showcase a curious, otherworldly creature hiding among the trees.

As I was looking through Flickr’s Smithstonian Gallery, debating what I could use to tell a story, I found this folder entitled ‘Loran’. The word was so similar to my name that I was heavily intrigued and clicked on it. the picture to the left is one of the ones that popped up. It is taken from a bird’s eye perspective, looking down at the ground.

It seems these towers are everywhere around the world transmitting radio signals for ships and aircraft. I never once thought to learn their names because for all of their hard work and talents, they never stood out. And yet their job is one of the most important jobs: to give data to towers so people can fly across our world, to visit their loved ones or to take a trip.

When I went to crop it, I realized how important the shoes were in this picture. The dirty converses tell a story of their own as the toes of them peek at the bottom of the original photo. Without them, the photo turns into this bridge with a mountain at the other side. The bridge looks to be held up by wires, almost as if it were over water or a huge valley.

So often I feel myself walking this tightrope of being a college kid and an adult. While this may seem normal, I often wonder if I will be caught if I fall. I get so caught up in all of my adult responsibilities that often when I go to FSU events, I take a deep breath and remember that I am just a college student. Everything will be okay and my friends and family are there to lift me up whenever I need a reminder of who I am.

Photography is not just about capturing a moment; it’s about telling a story. Recently, I had the opportunity to photograph the iconic Grand Hotel on Mackinac Island, Michigan. While the initial image had its charm, I realized that it didn’t quite capture the essence of this historic landmark. After some thoughtful cropping, the transformation was remarkable. In this post, I’ll share what was wrong with my original image and how cropping helped me highlight the beauty of the Grand Hotel.

The Initial Image: What Went Wrong?

When I first took the photo of the Grand Hotel, I was excited about the scene. However, upon reviewing the image, I noticed a few issues that detracted from its overall impact:

1. Distracting Background Elements: To the left of the hotel, there were numerous background elements, including trees and the street. You can also tell this is taken from a carriage you can see the carriage in the upper right corner. These distractions pulled attention away from the hotel itself, which is the focal point of the image.
2. Cluttered Composition: The presence of these additional elements made the composition feel cluttered. Instead of showcasing the grandeur of the hotel, the image felt busy and overwhelming.
3. Lack of Focus on the Subject: The original framing didn’t emphasize the hotel’s historic architecture or the charm of the horse-drawn carriage in front of it. The viewer’s eye was drawn in multiple directions rather than being guided to the main subject.

Cropping Concepts Featured in the Final Image

In the final version of the photo the following cropping concepts were effectively utilized:

1. Elimination of Negative Space: By removing the excessive negative space on the left, the image became more engaging and complete. The focus shifted entirely to the hotel and carriage, creating a stronger visual connection.
2. Rule of Thirds: The new composition allowed me to position the hotel in a way that aligns with the rule of thirds, creating a more dynamic and visually appealing image. This technique helps guide the viewer’s eye and adds interest to the composition.
3. Framing the Subject: The crop effectively framed the hotel and carriage, enhancing their prominence in the image. This technique draws attention to the subject and creates a sense of intimacy with the viewer.

Conclusion

Cropping can be a powerful tool in photography, transforming an ordinary image into something extraordinary. My initial photo of the Grand Hotel had potential, but it was the act of cropping that truly brought its beauty to life. By eliminating distractions and focusing on the hotel and carriage, I was able to create a compelling image that captures the essence of this historic landmark.

The original photo (left) is called Taj Mahal, India, 27 July 1945, by Norman Herfort, from The State Library of New South Wales. It is in the public domain.

My derivative (right) is called “Group in front of the Taj Mahal, 1945,” by Theo Thomas, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

When I saw the original image, I was immediately drawn to the group of people in the corner because of how brightly they were lit. Luckily, the scan of this photograph was very detailed, so I was able to zoom in and crop the scene to see them better. I consider this crop to be changing the focal point.

I love that the figures here are semi-transparent yet sharp, letting us know that they were probably sitting there for a while during a relatively long exposure. I don’t know if they were posed by the photographer or not, or if they simply saw the camera and decided to get in the shot. I don’t know if they were friends or coworkers or strangers. I just like that there is a sense of both movement–they had to have moved at some point in order to be slightly transparent–and stillness at the same time.

I thought it would be fun to try to very strongly emphasize the thirds in the picture, with the palm tree and the ground roughly aligning with horizontal and vertical thirds, and the standing man’s head falling at the top right intersection of the thirds. My goal with that was to enhance the feeling of stillness, especially with the bold, vertical line created by the tree and the standing man. I don’t know if that was necessarily a good design choice, but I sort of like how it turned out.

Going to concerts is one of my favorite past times and now that I am a proper adult with an adult-sized paycheck, I have made it my personal mission to attend concerts for all the bands that teenage Sara’s mother wouldn’t let her go to. Unfortunately, Paramore is still a band that I have not yet been able to see live.

How did we get here? Well, I think I know.

I was jamming out to Paramore on my way home from work. Decode was the last song I listened to before pulling into my garage and turning off my car. When I sat down to write this blog post, the song was still playing in my head so I headed over to Flickr to see what CC images relating to Paramore might be available. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the original image, it feels unfocused and the guitarist is viewed at an awkward angle. So not only is he presented in a way that disserves him, he’s taking focus from the major energy happening in the photo, portrayed by Hayley Williams. I elected to crop the photo to a 1:1 ratio, thereby omitting the guitarist from the photo and emphasizing Hayley. This shifts the focus squarely to Hayley and minimizes the pull of the crowd and the second guitarist on the eye of the viewer. In my cropped version, the crowd and the second guitarist are reduced in prominence to background objects supporting the context of Hayley singing.

“Brown Hummingbird Selective Focus Photography.”, Philippe Donn, (2018, March 28) Pexels.https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-hummingbird-selective-focus-photography-1133957/

“A Focused Brown hummingbird .”, Chrislene Perceval, 2025. Pexels. https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-hummingbird-selective-focus-photography-1133957/

For this assignment I worked with an image of a brown hummingbird from Pexels, and I cropped it to enhance the composition and emphasize the details from the Hummingbird. The original image beautifully captured the bird, but I felt that the wide shot didn’t do justice to the intricate beauty of the hummingbird in flight. The background elements were a bit distracting, and the bird seemed lost in the larger frame.

I decided to crop the image to focus more closely on the hummingbird, eliminating the unnecessary background and highlighting the bird’s delicate wings and feathers. By applying the rule of thirds, I repositioned the hummingbird slightly off-center to create a more dynamic composition, it’s as if the bird is flying to something, and that leaves room for imagination as to what.

The cropping concepts featured in my derivative would be:

• Emphasizing the focal point: By cropping tightly around the hummingbird, I ensured the viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to its wings and face, which are the most interesting and intricate parts of the photo.
• Simplifying the background: The crop removes distracting elements and focuses solely on the subject.
• Rule of thirds: The bird is now positioned off-center.

This exercise helped me understand the power of cropping to not only refine the composition but also to tell a more focused and dynamic story within a single frame. The final image feels more intimate, and the hummingbird is no longer just a part of a wide scene it’s the center of attention, as it should be.

When scrolling through public domain images on Flickr, this street scene caught my eye. The original photo (right) shows several people milling about in a street in Seoul at dusk. The streetlights and neon signs are coming on, but you can still see the remnants of daylight on the office building near the top of the photo. There’s a liminal quality to the original image that I really enjoy. However, I thought there was also an interesting story being told in the lower left that is lost in the large scale of the original.

The cropped version of the photo (left) shifts the focus of the image from the wider street scene to the man walking toward the camera. He’s wearing a backpack, where is he going? The street vendor in the red shirt is watching him, did he just leave the food stall? The original image (right) has a story to tell about the city shifting from day into night, while the cropped photo (left) feels more intimate and focused on the people in the image and their stories. When cropping the photo I did my best to follow the rule of thirds, while still maintaining space around the man in the foreground, giving him room to “move”.  

This picture was taken during my trip to Costa Rica. I was looking out from the balcony of my Airbnb and spotted this little guy hanging out on the tree. I took out my camera and snapped a pic. The only problem was my camera’s zoom only goes so far. That is why in the original picture the monkey is surrounded by a hundred leaves, and you can barely see him and make out certain details. For the cropping of this picture, I went in as close as possible without cropping out part of the monkey’s body. I really wanted to capture the details of the monkey’s face and see the slight markings it has. I cropped the picture to emphasize the focal point, which in this instance is the monkey’s face. The monkey was moving along the branch, so I made sure to leave space in front of it. Following the rule of thirds, I adjusted it to have his eyes aligned with the right corner in the grid. The image now, with its new crop, creates the perfect picture.

“Butterfly Garden on the Beach” By Katie Kimberly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

“Sand Dune Butterfly” By Katie Kimberly is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Photography has been a passion of mine for years, I unfortunately had to put the camera down during my freshman year of college because I was super busy with school. I had a ton of photographs to choose from and I mean a ton. It was extremely hard to choose which photograph to use for this assignment because I have a ton of photographs and it was a tough decision to make. I tend to take my camera everywhere I travel and capture photographs of subjects or things that stick out to me.

This photograph was captured at Atlantic Beach, Florida near the life guard tower. The sand dunes had wild flowers and plants, but also many butterflies. There were a ton of butterflies flying around the sand dune wild flowers and plants. This specific photograph stuck out to me due the composition, the vibrant colors and the subject of the photograph. There was too much unnecessary empty greenery space in the photograph. I decided that I wanted to have a close up perspective versus farther away, so that you can focus more on the Butterfly rather than the butterfly and greenery. Therefore I cropped out the excess greenery in the background so that the photograph could have a change in perspective and changes the focal point. Then I went back and decided to slightly adjust contrast, brightness and curves. Overall, The cropped version of the photograph plays into the rule of thirds while bringing the butterfly closer to the viewer and making it more apparent that the butterfly is the main subject of the photograph.

I took this photo at the Atlanta Botanical Garden in Atlanta, GA. The original shot was beautiful, but the statue felt too far away, and the foreground didn’t really add to the story I wanted to tell. While the fountain was a nice element, it competed with the statue for attention, so I decided to remove it.

To fix this, I cropped the image to bring the statue closer and make her the main focal point. This helped highlight the intricate details, like the flowers flowing through her hair. I also removed some extra greenery and the fountain in the foreground to keep the composition clean and direct the viewer’s eye straight to the statue.

When editing, I used Pixlr and selected the Monitor preset while cropping to keep a balanced aspect ratio. I also used the Auto Fix tool to brighten the image, which helped bring out the details in both the sculpture and the surrounding greenery. The small adjustments made the statue feel more vibrant and connected to nature.

I followed the rule of thirds by positioning the Earth Goddess slightly to the left, making sure her full figure was visible while still keeping some of the surrounding greenery. I also used tight framing to eliminate distractions and make the image feel more intimate.

In the end, these edits helped shift the focus back to the Earth Goddess and her connection to the garden, creating a stronger and more visually appealing composition.