1. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I. Cropping for Story Assignment Shooting and Photoshop – 10 slides Runner & Housewife Copyright © 2003 - 2009 Kenji Tachibana

2. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Overview: Guide 1.Crop based on you understanding of the story. 2.Crop out anything not relevant to ‘your take’. 3.Keep your story idea simple. 4.Crop based on visual comfort, natural balance, and negative space.

3. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Shot 1: Runner I’m using two images found in a trade magazine. They caught my eye as being good for this ‘cropping’ assignment. Copy (shoot) this image in full. Then crop it in both horizontal and vertical formats. Use the cropping goal to maintain the ‘running in the natural environment’ look & feel. Work to retain the ‘appearance-of-depth’.

4. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Shot 2: Housewife This “Liberty Mutual” ad can be cropped to a smaller square without loosing any of its message. Use the camera in its horizontal format to crop the exact top and bottom of the image. Finalize the left/right square cropping in Photoshop.

5. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Copy Shoot Requirements: 1.Use the usual assignment requirements. Copy shoot specific details are as follows: Aperture – f4.7 (sharpest flat field aperture)Aperture – f4.7 (sharpest flat field aperture) Shutter speed – as required by light level and be sure to use a tripod.Shutter speed – as required by light level and be sure to use a tripod. Focal length – 22 mm or close as possible. Wide usually suffer from barrel distortion.Focal length – 22 mm or close as possible. Wide usually suffer from barrel distortion. 2.I expect normal exposure, believable color, and crisp sharpness. And the final image must be ‘fine tune cropped’ and fully lab worked.

6. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Copy Shoot Guide: Make sure to keep the shape of the art work true. Do this by using the maximum telephoto (22mm preferred) and by shooting ‘dead center’ on the art work. Art work X Dead Center Dead Center Camera position Camera position

7. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Dead Centering: Even with the telephoto, shooting off-center will distort the art work with natural perspective distortion. The image distortion examples below shows the result of the camera off-set. Camera LowCamera HighCamera LeftCamera Right

8. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Camera Position: 1.More complicated shapes can result from a combination of low or high camera angle with a left or right side camera position. 2.Avoid the complicated shapes by establish the correct height first. Stand off to one side by at least 6 feet to determine the height. Once the height is established, use the black lines on the Mac Lab floor to guide your left/right camera positioning.

9. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Shooting Concerns: Self timer Even on a tripod, poor shutter button technique and or the use of a cheap tripod can cause camera movement blur. Use the self timer. The default time is 10 seconds. If possible, set the self timer speed to the shorter 2 or 3 seconds.

10. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I Cropping Assignment Shooting Concerns: Macro focus The small size of the subject will require most compact digitals zoom lens to be set to macro focus (flower icon) mode. Even with the special close focus mode, some digitals may not focus close enough. If so, try moozing back to wider 18 or 14mm. It’ll allow for closer focus. Although you have to move closer to the subject which can cause lighting or reflection problems. Also the wider angle will increase the potential for warped shape issues.

11. Teacher: Kenji Tachibana Digital Photography I x End