Framed

One of my favorite things to do when editing photos is incredibly simple: cropping. It always amazes me how much cropping an image can change it. It brings completely new elements into focus. It's also just as much about what you leave out as what you leave in. Sometimes I have a hard time deciding exactly what it is about a particular shot that I want to focus in on. So today I decided to demonstrate the power of cropping. The first image is the original picture I took. It's a couple years old and I took it at a farmers' market in Halifax on a delightfully grey, Nova Scotia-y day. It's a fine picture of a lovely flower, but nothing particularly spectacular. However, crop it in a few different ways and voila, you have some truly special images. Personally, I am a big fan of the first cropped version. I like that you can still kind of see that it is in a tray of pots and not in the ground. It retains that market feel and yet is focused on the beauty of the flower. The second one draws the attention to the details of the flower, which is something I love to do. When I look at nature and often when I am composing pictures I focus in on the details, the tiny things. That's just what tends to grab my attention. By cropping the photo, the details become all there is to see and therefore that much more important and captivating. The third photo is a pretty standard way that I tend to shoot flowers or crop existing shots. For some reason I really like the composition of just part of a flower in the frame of the image against a non-descript background. It brings the attention to the flower without being your standard, central focal point. The last image is a bit blurred because of the part of the original that I cropped it out of, but I kind of like that about it. It is not a specific flower that is depicted. I love the intensity of the green too. And that just distinguishable bud curled into the bottom of the frame is great.

I went to see the latest round of exhibits at the AGA today and it was fantastic. The one I was most excited to see was "Reframing a Nation", which is a collection of works by Canadian artists. I should warn you now that this is likely to turn into a nerdy ramble. I will not be offended should you decide to stop reading right now. In fact, I won't even know. Anyway, I was excited for this exhibit because I am fascinated by the concept of national identity and how it is formed, particularly when it comes to Canada. Do we even have a national identity? Or do we simply define ourselves in negatives (we are not American, for example)? And it really fascinates me how literature and art play into the development and reinforcement of the Canadian identity. So much can be seen in these paintings, but one of the important things to consider is what has been intentionally included and what has been intentionally excluded. In Canadian art the landscape is what is depcited most often; typically the harsh, barren land is shown while hints of civilization are completely ignored or played down. This is the bush myth at its finest. This is how Canadians define themselves. We are a people beset by Mother Nature, who must struggle for our very survival. It is us against the land and although the land is beautiful, we have to protect ourselves from it. We take pride in the conditions we face. What Canadian has never bragged about surviving a winter where the windchill made it feel like -50*C? How many of us love hiking and climbing mountains? (Not me, but I appreciate the views and admire those who do participate in these activities.) I know that this isn't limited to Canada, but there is something unique about the Canadian relationship with nature and it is definitely part of our national identity. I just find it so fascinating how much you can learn about our national identity by looking at what we include and exclude in our art. This is actually what I want to study at grad school, how Canadian literature and art construct, reveal, and reinforce the Canadian identity. I will now stop rambling because I could talk about this endlessly. If you are ever so inclined to have a discussion about Canadian identity, art, or just national identity in general let me know, I would love to hear other people's views on the subject.