Cropping

You may not normally consider texture to be part of portrait composition, but it is a huge part of making or breaking the image. Improper cropping can leave your subject floating and unbalanced, while too much cropping can take away from the overall image, eliminating key elements. Thanks to the size of images that today’s digital cameras can produce—with megapixels upwards of 30 or more—you have a lot of flexibility when it comes to cropping. Certainly you want your image to be as perfect in camera as it can be, but take into consideration the power of cropping and leave a little room around your subject when you photograph your portraits. Strategic cropping in Figure 30 created this image with just enough background and no more.

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