To Crop or Not – Ohio State’s Noah Brown’s Catch of the Year

As both a photographer and photo editor for USA Today Sports, I found myself in a situation that almost every photographer deals with on a daily basis. Should I crop or not? And if so, how much? Last Saturday, I was fortunate enough to capture what might already arguably be the college football catch of the year when Ohio State’s Noah Brown made an incredible one handed catch with the ball pinned against the back of Oklahoma Sooners defensive back Michiah Quick. I was using the new Canon 1DX Mark II with the 200-400mm lens and the combination flawlessly captured the whole sequence in perfect focus! (So thanks Canon!!)

Once I got back to the workroom to edit my images at halftime, I immediately pulled up that sequence as I knew it was more than likely the topic of everyone’s conversation around the country. Usually with a sequence of photos, I try to pick 1 or maybe at most 2 shots to send in as editors usually do not want to see more than that.(It can get pretty repetitive otherwise.) I knew that this photo was special though and so I decided to basically crop the sequence 3 different ways. Here is my reasoning…

1. I chose to leave the photo as a loose horizontal. More and more web clients are choosing to use horizontal photos and by leaving the composition pretty loose, it allows them to fit the photo into their webpages, designs, etc… Normally, I look for clean backgrounds, but in a photo like this where the sidelines are ridiculously packed with people, I think being able to see all of their reactions actually adds to the storytelling aspect.(Love the joy on the OSU band members, the mascot, and the fans along with the despair and disbelief on the faces of the Oklahoma fans.)

2. I chose to do a tight horizontal crop on just the catch. Lots of newspapers and other clients prefer solid, tight action. This also makes an ugly background not seem as bad. It’s what I usually try to do 80% of the time, so I had to send in an option for them.

3. Since it was a very important play, I also included a vertical photo as well. Even though this will probably be the least used, I really like being able to see the dangling legs on both players in mid air with an emphasis on the action.(You can also still see some of the bystander reaction although not as much as the looser crop.)