sean_mcr wrote:If i hear crop or clone my eyes glaze over
Not sure I understand this. I got a respected photographer to mentor me online. I would post images and have him critique them. I felt I needed that kind of feedback to push myself. Sometimes, "crop" was exactly what he suggested and what was needed. I try to get it right in the frame at the time I shoot - probably what we all try to do, but sometimes it doesn't happen.
Here is an example of one of his critiques where the message was to crop and clone, or tighten the image. BTW, it was a flower fairly close up.
Generally, I think that the left and right edge of the frame are different from the bottom and top (especially the top). That is, we're put together so that we accept (and sometimes expect) blank areas at the top (aka sky) and bottom of the frame, and often it's constructive photographically to include areas like that because doing so emphasizes the rest of what's in the frame. A good example would be a lone tree silhouettted against the sky, with just a bit of foreground but quite a lot of sky over the top - this composition just about shouts 'lonely'. Empty space on the sides, though, doesn't work in the same way.
In this image, look at the left edge. Cover up the right hand side of the image and leave just the part to the left of the 'm' in your signature. What is in that section that's actively contributing? What it seems to be contributing is just space, to get the flower into the right spot in the composition. So if you crop off that bit of blank space on the left, all of a sudden you have a new problem - the image is no longer balanced nicely. To rebalance, you need to adjust the other edges - perhaps cropping a bit off the right.
There are two nice features that I think dictate where the left edge ought to go - the leaf angling down into the lower left corner, and the bud behind the leaf. If you crop just to the left of the 'm', all of a sudden that leaf falls into the corner (Nice!) and the bud is close enough to the edge that it becomes a bit more prominent.
The downside here is that if you crop on the right, you lose the nice cluster of leaves or whatever in the lower right corner. Maybe clone them into the newly cropped corner?
My goal in all of this is to tighten up a composition which seems just a bit loose. What do you think?
Rene