I've been working on this photo of my husband, John, for a few days. I must have taken a gazillion shots of him while he was fishing on the dock and this is my favorite. I love his expression. There was some glare on his face from the sun that was distracting and I've been reviewing tutorials on different ways to deal with that in ps. I finally was able to calm it down today.
My next decision was cropping. I've been reading about composition and one article said that when taking or processing portraits to concentrate on the face, unless you want to document clothing such as a wedding gown. I tend to do that but rules are meant to be broken. In this case, I really liked the spontaneity of his pose in this shot but I also really like the head shot.
I'm asking for your opinion...To crop or not to crop...what do you think?
Great portrait. I'm afraid I will be no help. I like them both. I would suggest, if you are going to frame the cropped version as a portrait, to leave a little more to the right of his ear. You will lose 1/8" - 1/4" when you mat.
Both are lovely of hubby. If you want a portrait I would crop. At my class this week we were reminded of the rule of thirds. I think you need to keep some shoulder and try and get the left eye on the top left cross grid lines.Good Luck.
@onlyme111@lstasel@wendyfrost@lilminimonka@sharleen@elainelk Thank you all so very much for your input! I really appreciate all of your suggestions. I think that I was to preoccupied with documenting a place and time that I tried to get too much of the dock in the photo and it detracts from the subject (my husband.) I will now take all of your suggestions and revisit this photo, add more space on the right, and come up with the final version which I will post when I'm finished. Thank you, again!
@lstasel Thank you for reminding me about the mat! Good thinking!
Definitely crop and I agree with Laura to leave a little more to the right of his ear too. I would also try to clone out the orange bucket? as it is a bit distracting.
They both look great in their own way but for a portrait i would say crop as the background takes the focus away from the face :)
@lstasel Thank you for reminding me about the mat! Good thinking!