alittlenews

Photo copyright Gary Rhodes

Gary Rhodes, aka Rhodesphoto, contributed this photo from a rally welcoming now former president George W Bush home in Midland, TX where he works as a photojournalist.  I absolutely love this photo.  Hey, a guy named Gary can’t possible go wrong!  I have covered rallies and crowds of all types and I would love to come back with this image.  My only suggestion would be to crop a bit tighter on the top of the image.  The extra space at the top of the frame does nothing for the image.  One rule for cropping that will always help you is to see if negative space is helping you or if it is just sitting there.  In this case, I think the negative space at the top of the frame is just sitting there so a crop to just above the top of the highest W would help the image.

I am not a cropping freak.  I like to let the frame speak.  That said, we had some gurus in to The Decatur Daily a while back and they really put an emphasis on cropping tighter.  I don’t agree with all they said but I will admit that I am a bit loose on some of my crops so tightening up helped me.

Rhodesphoto put several photos in the pool from this event and this one is the standout image. Click here to check out his Flickr Photostream and you will see several variations on this image but none carry the weight that this one does. Also check out Gary’s blog, Shadow and Light. The thing that makes this image click and some of the others be second place is the sign in the middle. The welcome home sign gives you a nice piece of visual contrast in the sea of Ws and gives a touch of context. Not that any of us need wonder who the W refers to but it still is a good visual tie in. The sign also gives your eye just a little bit of visual rest as you scan the sea of Ws. This can be fairly important in a chaotic image.

When you hear writing coaches speak about the craft, you will hear about conflict and resolution.  The Ws carry the visual conflict and the sign carries the visual rest or resolution.  Conflict and resolution are critical parts of storytelling whether it is done with words or with pictures.  Always be conscious of conflict and resolution as you go through your edits.

Photo copyright Gary Rhodes.  The opinions expressed in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of my employer.