To crop an image is to remove or adjust the outside edges of an image, usually a photo, to improve framing or composition, draw a viewer’s eye to the subject, or change the size or aspect ratio. In other words, photo cropping is the act of improving an image by removing unnecessary parts. It may seem illogical, but the most interesting and eye-catching photos rarely have their subject smack-bang in the middle of the image. In fact, it’s a fundamental rule of photography that your primary subject shouldn’t be in the centre.

The rule of thirds

The rule of thirds divides all images into three equal horizontal and vertical sections (or nine individual boxes) separated by grid lines. Normally, you want to place the points of interest near the spots where these grid lines intersect.

You need to take in to consideration:

• The discovery of background elements you didn’t realize were there
• Issues with the framing or composition
• To better focus on your subject

Mood Board

This is a mood board of cropping. As you can see the pictures usually have a main focus, this is all down to cropping, where you narrow down the image to focus on one subject.

My attempt at cropping