This document discusses different approaches to cropping photographs. It begins by looking at the artistic cropping style of Alexey Brodovitch, who used dramatic cropping to tell stories and intrigue readers. It then contrasts this with the efficiency-focused cropping used in newspaper photography. The document also examines creating flexible crops to allow images to adapt to different formats. It proposes a cropper tool to help preserve the experience of photographs across devices. Finally, it discusses preserving the integrity of historically important images that should not be cropped.
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2. - Introduction
• My name is Ash Gibson
• I am a freelance Creative Director,
Ash Gibson / Creative director
@ash_gibson_
artwordspictures.wordpress.com
ideasformsfunctions.wordpress.com
• I worked at Conde Nast - GQ magazine for a long time - where it was impressed
upon me the numerous ways in which an art
director is responsible for the content and
the reader.
• The picture on the previous page is of
my first camera and my current camera because today I want to talk about using
photography.
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3. “Today everything exists to end
in a photograph.”
Susan Sontag, 1977
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4. - commissioning & using them in the best
• I thought this quote very prescient ways possibly.
especially considering when it was written.
(Broadly speaking Sontag was arguing that - I am not sure I have found a more elegant
photographic images had begun to create a
phrase for it something I think it is a kind of
“chronic voyeuristic relation” within people).
invisible art.
• We live in a most extraordinary time for the • For a while it it seemed to me that having
photographic image:
“reverence for the image” was becoming in
- How many people have a camera of some
form on them?
- What was the last picture you took?
- Cameras have become ubiquitous.
- Making an image has become an almost
invisible process.
But also:
some way or other anachronistic.
• But with recent projects I have realised that
this does not have to be the case.
• What I want do today is take a few old ideas
about photography, & it’s usage and show
how we still use them - or could start using
them - to make better experiences for
users.
• In the making of digital products - they
are often treated with little reverence. Just
another asset - Another part of the jigsaw.
• My work has always involved “looking after”
pictures.
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5. • For an immense amount of products it’s
image that makes it what it is.
• When it comes to photography there are
some very different issue from graphics
or type - as it cannot be responsive in the
same way.
• Digital work needs order, protocols,
formats. but some types of images can’t
communicate at their best with so many
constraints.
• As an illustration of how or why we - “the
makers” - might have more reverence for
the image I wanted to use “the art of the
crop” as an example
- create a brief and tenuous history
- and discuss its disappearance as an art …
and possible return
• On a particular job I used to say that with
type you have conventions,
- then you set up some rules specific to the
project
- and together they make the parameters that
help you design it every day.
• With photography the rules can change
every day... or not, depends what material
your have.
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7. • This is the cover of a 1948 edition of Harpers
Bazaar.
• Alexey Brodovitch was the pioneering art
director of Harpers in the 40s.
• He saw in the era in which you could first
print colour photographs.
• He also understood how dramatic an image
could be if it was cropped “artfully”
• This kind of crop could be classified as just
that - cropping for dramatic purpose
or
- to help the picture tell a more intriguing
story.
• I think of cropping in this sense runs along a
sliding scale:
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9. “(The) disease of our age is boredom...
The way to combat this is by invention by surprise. When I say a good picture has
surprise value, I mean that it stimulates my
thinking and intrigues me.”
Alexey Brodovitch, 1898 - 1971
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10. • This quote is from Brodovitch himself.
• He is talking about what he did - which was
make and tell stories with pictures in order
to entertain. fantasies really - in fashion.
• But you can also picture how he saw images
new place in the world:
- the way they were consumed.
- the way they manufactured desire
- or sold things (in that context).
• it does make you think about how we
consume images now.
• Not just fashion but any destination that
we go to for the pictures - Instagram,
Facebook etc.
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12. • These a great examples of a more brutal
kind of cropping.
• Where actually what they are just trying
to achieve here is efficiency - as much of
the content of the picture in the largest
available space.
• As you can see this technique can serve
some very different purposes.
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13. “If your pictures aren’t good enough,
you aren’t close enough”
Robert Capa, 1913 - 1954
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14. • This kind of crop is definitely NOT what
Robert Capa was referring to when he said
this. But it does illustrate his point about this
type of news:
- THAT The demands of these stories and
pages require the most efficient of crop - not
something elegant clever - as before.
- No poetry here - no sliding scale.
Just pragmatism
- Pictures original frame is almost an
inconvenience.
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15. • So there are 2 examples ofpossible policies
you could have on cropping a images based in ideas from print:
- creating interest
- creating efficiency
• How can we account for images usage in
digital work?
• I was talking to a photographer friend of
mine about “the death of crop”.
• I had been working on a print product
that - for a variety of reasons - needed huge
extendable backgrounds on every piece
of photography so the layout was as flexible
as possible.
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18. • Here I have marked out some rough
potential crops that shows what formats he
may of been building this image for:
• Its issues are:
- magazine page size
- with a payoff of consistency and flexibility
across many platforms
- vertical and horizontal banner
- and maybe billboard sizes too
- High production values for the shoot and the
post
• Also: an ability to slide between different
kinds of crop:
- functional
- dramatic
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20. • So we have looked at 3 archetypes of crop:
- creating interest
- creating efficiency
- creating flexibility
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21. • Which leads me to :
• How could we crop in an automated
environment?
OR
• How do you account for its delivery to
multiple formats?
• This was the problem I kept coming across
when working in digital.
• Either
- The experience of the photograph was not
being preserved
or
- it wasn’t being accounted for as much as
possible across all the formats.
- Not enough accuracy for an efficient crop
- Not enough flexibility for being playful
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22. • Cyclist Magazine - was an opportunity to
find some solutions.
• When the edition moved to a CMS
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24. • This is the Cropper we build for Cyclist
Magazine CMS
• The end result is an artful addition to the
COPE strategy:
• Its something the programmer built for the
mag after numerous discussions on photo
usage and how important it was for the
experience of the mag.
- Commission Once, Publish Everywhere
• And that is almost the end of my brief,
subjective, history of The Crop
• It is a set of smart guides that meant you
could tell what crop you would get from one • I thought we could find one more technique
for cropping with this picture
file in multiple formats:
• Following is another heritage idea - but it is
• Top left is the original file format
something that was discussed at length for
after that:
the Cyclist CMS:
- iPad landscape
- iPad portrait
- iPad landscape
- iPhone and android phones - landscape and
portrait
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29. • However:
• This is is a historical picture of great
importance:
- Its the first photograph of a human - or
humans - and nearly the first photo every
taken.
• Or as my programmer woud say:
“honour ratio”
• I really wanted to show it because i wanted
us to consider that
- just as there was at time when mass
reproducing colour images was new
- “Boulevard du Temple” taken 1838 or 1839
by Louis Daguerre
- there was also a photography was new
- Daguerreotype - the first practicable
photographic process
- My point here is really that everything in
digital is so new that conventions are up for
grabs - or being erased.
• My point here is:
so
• it may have many formats in it - none of
the importance of this picture would be
preserved if it was cropped.
• SO thats our last type of crop
- preservation.
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30. In conclusion
• So we have looked at 5 possible ways - of
many - to manage pictures:
• Each image and cropping style has a
different purpose:
- creating interest
- to communicate a story, to sell, entertain or
maybe just to charm.
- creating efficiency
- creating flexibility
- allowing for multiple formats in automation
and
- preservation
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31. “There is a magic when you read an
image that you know doesn’t move but you have a sense that something
is moving, if not on the page then
in your mind”
Chris Ware, The Guardian, October 2013
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32. • Thought i might wrap up with something
more contemporary:
• It just made me think that our job as makers
is to:
• Cartoonist Chris Ware was in the paper a
couple of weeks ago taking about his work.
He said this:
- find ways of preserving what is great about
a picture.
“There is a magic when you read an image
that you know doesn’t move - but you have
a sense that something is moving, if not on
the page then in your mind.”
- because when we are using great pictures
they are bringing something to the story that
nothing else can.
• What I love about this quote is that
- He said it a few weeks ago
- He reveres the image
AND
- That we have a reverence for the image
many that we, in many ways, don’t notice
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33. Afterward
• This is a final picture - It’s by the great
Robert Frank.
• It’s a historical artefact. Only Robert Frank
can crop a Robert Frank picture
• I just like the sense that something is
moving... an it moves me.
AND
• I just thought it was just a nice picture
for an ending
U.S. 285,
New Mexico
Robert Frank , 1956
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