Understanding The Art of Cropping

The Bandage. Imlil, Morocco. January, 2007
Leica M8
An old saying in photography has it that – "If your photographs aren't good enough, it's likely because you aren't close enough". This is often misunderstood to mean that one should be shooting with a long lens, or just doing close-ups. Not so. What is meant is that any photograph is of necessity about "something", and it is the photographer's task to hone the image so that it contains, to the greatest degree possible, only that which the photograph is intended to be about.
There is an apocryphal story that one day the Pope came to visit Michelangelo in his studio while he as sculpting his "David". The Pope marveled at the partially completed work, and asked, "How do you know what to cut away?" Michelangelo's response was, "It's simple. I just remove everything that doesn't look like David."
The trick, or rather – theart, is, of course, not in simply removing everything that doesn't look like David, but in knowing both wh...