The Crop

I think one of the most important elements of an image is the crop. It’s a little like cutting a diamond, you want to chisel away everything that is not flattering and be left with something that sparkles. The first image is the full shot of Oksana Skorik (Mariinsky) in Swan Lake.

I wanted to highlight her beautiful form and did a very tight crop of just her upper body. You may have chosen something different but I think this is very dramatic. The camera was a Nikon D800E which is 36 megapixels, it allows you to take a small crop and still have enough resolution left to make a large print. Tech Info: F4, 200 sec, -67 exp comp, 4000 ISO