On Cropping Pictures

I’m a believer in cropping photographs. I don’t do much photo management: I take pictures by ambient light, flash disabled; I use a small 20 megapixel handheld digital camera; I process little. It’s my method of street photography. But I do crop. As you see, cropping changes the image from broad to intimate. The cropped version of ‘Cantor’ stresses the blue of Diana’s dress and the halo of candles surrounding Rachel, the warmth between the two women. It talks about colour. The full shot is about place, and what happens there. Rachel sings in a church that echoes the history of the colony: the city of Melbourne was proclaimed from its steps in 1848. The picture considers spaced-out churches where the aged, the disabled, the sick and the homeless — the same who came to hear Jesus — still come to hear his liturgy. It also speaks of committed musicians giving their hearts from the choir loft: here present what Britten called ‘the holy triangle’ of composer, performer, and listener. A picture about sound. Where is your field of attention? Is it close, detailed, intimate, appreciative? Or is it broad, detached, gathering experience of place and time? Which do you prefer? It was hard to decide.