Freezing - Perisher Valley - 25 Jun 2002 (picasa)As well as traveling to the Snowy Mountains during summer, Jenny, Jo and I decided to spend some time in the Mountains during Winter. We did this in Jun 2000, 2001 and 2002. After that the Dragon Boating took over our winters.
It was always nice to go to Perisher during the first week of the ski season (mid-late June) where the Boonoona Ski Lodge was not really that busy - mainly accountants getting a small holiday in before the end of financial year rush.
Jenny and Jo were good skiers and they were able to get out onto the ski fields, while I did some reading and wondering around the local snow covered bush land. Would always have my camera at hand and found many nice photos from these little (actually some were quite long) walks.
This particular photo was taken on the side of the Perisher Valley Water Supply Dam. It was near sunset and there was a nice golden glow on the water. The original photo is shown below.
When I got back to Sydney, I uploaded the a cropped version to my photo.net portfolio (see here). In the discussion I provided the original uncropped photo, which is shown below, and I wondered which was better (cropped or uncropped?).
'Freezing' (Orignal) - Perisher Valley - 25 Jun 2002 (picasa)I was pleased to receive this well thought out response from Marc G:
Very clearly, for me, the cropped version is better. Just sharing with you, here, a very simple method I use for years to know in similar cases whether it should be cropped or not.
I just ask myself "what I have I lost if I crop ? What have I gained ?
Here, the crop makes you lose the extension of this line - but it isn't a curved extension, so not very elegant, and not actually a loss. Then, no other important elements at the bottom. Now what have you gained ? You have gained simplicity and peace. Peace because you gained simplicity, and peace because that's in general what comes with squares - by the books.
Now in what sense have you gained simplicity ?
That's the most important question. The curved line being shorter, it is seen faster. Since we start from top left and go down, and since what was in the lower part was nothing great, we can say that here we keep only the nectar.
In the original, the nectar came with not much at the end. Then, here, since the eye is quickly finished with the main curve, it then moves to the right, and that's where it can find extra beauty in the dented ice and in the light at the top.
Basically, you kept the best only. Honestly, I would never have thought of hanging the original on my walls, but this one, I would - without a single hesitation. If you are interested, by the way, I'd buy a print of this - provided you give me a good price. It is no, to me, the best ice shot I've seen on this site, without a doubt for me, and I'd regard this as POW material - if I were an elfe, that is...:-))
Meanwhile, if you are keen, I'm serious, let me know the price for a 50 cm square print... Regards. Marc G. August 05, 2002; 02:00 P.M.
All of his critique made sense to me and I was very happy that a professional photographer would like one of my photos so much - was quite flattered. Unfortunately, the photo was taken on a small digital camera (1600 by 1200 pixels) and there was no way the image could be printed to a 50cm square. I would send the full-size original to Marc with my thanks for such a helpful critique and my best wishes that he might find something useful from the original file.
Over the years I have played around with the cropping of this image and I am quite satisfied with the version below.
'Freezing' (Alternate Crop) - Perisher Valley - 25 Jun 2002 (picasa)
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