To Crop or Not to Crop???

To crop or not to crop? That is the Question!! Photography is all about taking a lot of information and focusing it. The world that people photo is filled with information. Photography is all about deciding what your subject is. What is it you wish to highlight in your picture and how do you organize the photo to focus the viewer's eye on your chosen subject. Last summer in Homer, Alaska I stood on the shore of the Homer Spit looking out over Kachemak Bay at the Kenai Mountain Range and a boat came into my view. Homer being a "small drinking town with a fishing problem" a boat traveling across the water is not a rare sight. I knew I had an interesting picture, but it wasn't as "focused" as I wanted it to be. I took a couple of pictures none the less to capture the moment. When I got home, I threw the picture above (along with a few others) into Photoshop with the purpose in mind of cropping them in a letterbox style picture. The purpose being to get rid of the needless information and keep only that which would help to highlight my subject. The Mountains, The Water, and of course The Boat speeding across the water. I think we all agree the 2nd picture speaks more profoundly than the one above. So picture what you "want" to see in your head. Take the picture, and when you get home finish the process of creating the picture you imagined. It's O.K.