Dik dik closeup.

The eyes have it!

Dik dik closeup, Tarangire National Park, Tanzania.  Canon 20D with 800mm lens at F5.6, 1/200 second at ISO 100.

I mentioned in an earlier post that whilst on safari I was lucky enough to borrow (briefly) an 800mm super-telephoto lens.  This particular image of the skittish dik-dik was taken with that lens and although I was happy enough with the unprocessed image,  I realized that there was a case to be made for cropping.    The image is effectively an animal portrait and,  as is the case with a human portrait,  “the eyes have it”.    By cropping in (the final crop is about 25% of the original frame) attention is focused on the face which was my intention.

The “integrity of the frame”

Some people are rather precious about cropping images,  I hear and read statements like,  it’s “interfering with the integrity of the frame” and so on,  pretentious rubbish!   A few years ago (in the days of film) there was actually a trend to print images full-frame together with the edges of the film showing the film sprocket holes, and the negative number as well, to demonstrate the “integrity” of the frame.   This got to the truly ridiculous,  and in fact dishonest,  stage where people were publishing images with “film frame” masks to mimic the “integrity” they professed.    I’ve been publishing some personal,  and sometimes strongly held,  views regards photography in this blog,  but if I ever stoop to that sort of nonsense,  please punch me in the back of the head.    (hoping that’s never necessary!)

Love KD….