Rev said:
Cheat,
Thanks... but if everyone KISS, then we'd all shoot like you... then how to capture a busy scene/city.... If I'd shot any wider, I'd have more road, a road divider, more sky.... more distractions... and dont really understand how to define 'unnatural cropping'... care to enlighten us?
Shoot like me?? Don't understand what you mean...
Keeping things simple doesn't mean that you can't capture a busy cityscape. Conversely, a picture with very little elements could be very complex as well. It's not fair to pre-visualise per se on what is simple or complex. Most of the time, simple/complex is a reaction on hindsight. In this case, I personally felt that you'd tried to be too greedy, in wanting to capture everything, from the complete background building, to the cars in the front... By focusing more on one aspect or another, the picture may potentially be much more powerful as it is.
While it's true that wide angle will present a different set of challenges, with more elements, a picture with a lot of small elements could be potentially simple as well. If you don't agree, would you care explain then why no one ever complain of wideangle landscape shots of being overly complex?
I'm playing with some cliche here, cos I'd never successfully taken any wideangle shots before (I don't shoot with SLR fyi)... but if memory didn't fail me, Berenice Abbott did a wonderful set of New York shots in the 1930s with wideangles (like duh! large format, standard lens! hahhah!), where the downtown cityscape buildings looked very very majestic. You may want to take a look at her work to get some inspiration.
Now comes the hard part. How am I ever gonna explain what I meant by unnatural cropping? It's really hard for me to put it in exact words, cos it's just funny! Okay, don't mind some very horrible knowledge here hor, cos no one ever taught me any proper knowledge in photography... If you were to place your eye on the road at the foreground, and move gradually straight into the background, what would it feel like? To me, the effect on a long and winding road is just lost from the picture, partly because there's no extra foreground (dead space) before the traffic light to enhance the triangular projection of a long road to the background.
I think the unnatural crop of the bushes on the left is pretty straightforward. It seems totally awkward for the rubbish bin to seemingly float off something, and the bushes growing up from nothing... The crop on the right is just stifling. Again, I don't know how to put them in words...
Don't be too mindful about the crop though... that's just technical nonsense, and is not critical. Instead, focus more on how to enhance the concept of an overall cityscape, i.e. shoot more!