Those of you who know me personally know how I feel about cropping. As someone using a 12 megapixel camera from 2008 (a year after I was born), I do not have the option to aggressively crop in photos as seems to have become mainstream. As this website is, in the end, a containment of my work and my thoughts, I will not refrain from my honest opinion. If you cannot take the photo right without cropping most of the original out, you need to do some serious work on your skills. I would love to get a new Nikon Z series or to a D850 where cropping in is more of an option, and the affordability of used mirrorless cameras is a huge win for photographers; however, this also means new photographers who want to take a more professional route are not going to pick up the same tools as someone like myself, who learned on a classic DSLR. Nothing will teach you how to handle settings and how to frame a photo the same was as having no other choice. I'd love to see more of this "learn the hard way first, then appreciate the easy way" mindset, and I know of some photographers out there supporting it. More simply put, it seems to me that the basic skills of a photographer are deteriorating with every added megapixel. This is not to go against making photography easier to access, or making it easier to capture amazing moments; it is however, very much meant to encourage even the well practiced to maintain their art and the skills they have by taking on challenges like not copping at all, or exclusively shooting vertical or horizontal. When we stop actively working to create art or capture a moment's emotion with our work as photographers we are no longer making real use of the amazing technology at our fingertips. Even the hobbyist who just wishes to have memories to look back upon is trying to capture a feeling in a moment that they'll be able to connect to in the future. Being able to look through your viewfinder or at your screen and frame at a moment and the frame that moment in a way meaningful to you as an artist is a vital skill, manifesting in its own way across many forms of art. I point to the image to the right as an example of an imperfect attempt to frame. I still like the picture, but as I was in a rush, I didn't give myself enough room around the feet of the players I was photographing. The emotion is still there to an extent, but it certainly would feel more engaging to a viewer if they could fully see the players' feet. Ideally, on a camera with a higher resolution sensor I would crop in on the upper bodies and face in the frame and probably make a horizontal crop to focus solely on the emotion of the moment without so much extra space. For now, it's back to small crops and having to frame everything right in the viewfinder.
- Andrew (Currently trying to find a way to justify a $2000 credit card expenditure on a Nikon D850)
