photographer vs Newsweek
Out of context: Reply #29
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Absolutely false. Nothing could be further from the truth. Historically, cropping has been considered a cardinal sin by the vast majority of professional photographers. I went to art school where I majored in photography, and where students were encouraged to use “artistic license” to express their ideas.
Even there we were forbidden by our professors to crop our negatives. It was done very rarely, was always obvious, and considered cheap and lazy. The students themselves respected the history of the medium, and if they couldn’t express their ideas within the format they were working, they were told to try harder.
It was an issue of integrity and creative competence. If you cropped your negatives (this was in the late 90’s by the way, not 40-50 years ago), it was “weak” and “square”. Many of the photographers we studied are/were Magnum legends. I wonder if Mr. De Maria would care to ask the folks over at Magnum what they think of cropping and journalistic integrity.