SIDEBAR

Hip to be Square?

8 comments
Feb 27 2015

A good friend of mine, and a keen photographer, is very fond of the square presentation. I have always advocated looking hyper-critically at your own work to see if it might benefit from a crop but to be sure I hadn’t really ‘got my head around’ the square presentation. The working ratios of most cameras give a fixed format which generally looks good and works well. So what better reason to have a change?

I have offered up here a shot as taken from the camera, of a swirl pattern in the sand of a nearby beach, spotted and shot yesterday afternoon when the sun was setting. My initial impression was one of “well, it’s ok, but it sure ain’t going to set the world alight”. So I took it to a square format and, to me, the swirls are no longer drowned out by their surroundings but become the purpose of the shot, which really was what I wanted in the first place.

Cropping is just one more way to make your work stand out; to show your audience “That’s what I saw and wanted to share with you”.

It’s easy enough to do – I just cropped out the area that to me WAS the shot, went to image resize and made sure that length and width pixel counts matched.

I did keep the original of course in case, in ten years time, I change my mind  🙂

 

Sand Patterns uncropped Dunraven Bay_DSC7965

Uncropped version

 

Sand Patterns square cropped Dunraven Bay_DSC7965
Cropped version

 

 

  2. Judi Lion 

    I often crop to square, particularly with flower photography, using the 5″x5″ crop option on PSE. I’ve noticed that there is a 1:1 option on my new Olympus, which I guess means it would produce a square image? 🙂 Must try that one

  4. Heid :) 

    Cropping to a square format can be fun! I’ve used the 1:1 crop tool in Lightroom many a time. I especially like it for doing triptychs. It also comes in handy for when I’ve created and designed my Blurb books too!! 😉

    The picture above definitely works well with a 1:1 ratio. The curve of the sand pattern is enhanced more making it, for me, a more pleasing shot.

  6. Barbara Fleming 

    I am another one who enjoys the square format. I don’t know whether it is because I have been doing the 35 m for so long – it is a relief sometimes to see a square picture. The more I do photography the more I seem to be seeing in square format. For landscapes the wide format it often a good idea – you can then concentrate on the middle ground, which is where the picture often is.

  7. Brian Haggerty 

    yep its square for me a s well i often use the square format, film guys/gals remember the blad days and bronica. i always used to compose in the square format deliberately at weddings so uncle fred wouldn’t have the same pic as me.

  8. Alan Santillo 

    I have to admit to being a square fan as well. I have a room full of square 7″ x 7″ macro flora images. They necer cease to inspire me everytime I am in that room … and that is almost every day. So square definitely gets my vote 🙂

Submit a Comment