This photo essay is posted at KLM Images.

Cropping for action

All charm and tilted motion

I typically come down on the engineering side of the analysis vs artistic spectrum, and this manifests in my photography as wanting to see the whole scene: the entire horse and rider, the full pack of hounds, and so forth.  This is an artistic fault, I firmly believe.  I know this because, whenever happenstance intervenes and forces a moving target to be cropped in ways I would never have planned, I am often much pleased with the results.

When I stand too close to the action with a particular lens and try to get something useful anyway, the image is reduced to its essentials.  I don’t need to see the top of the rider’s head or the details of the horse’s legs to enjoy this shot.  Read the rest of this entry »