Cinematic Crop

As photographers, we often look to other photographers for inspiration and ideas. However, there are plenty of other sources that can provide us with inspiration. For me one of these is cinema. That wide image on the cinema screen has always felt incredibly absorbing. In photography when we want to go wide we often reach for a wide angle lens, but there is another way. Enter cinematic crop.

Previously my wide crops had always been 16:9. My Fujifilm cameras allow me the option to shoot in this ratio too which is great for projects like photo films. Last year, I came across a superb article by Take Kayo, or Big Head Taco as he is otherwise known, that talked cropping to the cinematic ratio.  You can find the article here. If you don’t want to read the article ( you really should by the way), then what you need to know is that the rough conversion of the cinematic aspect ratio works out to around 21:9.

This type of crop certainly won’t work for everything but, for some things, it seems just perfect. In his article, Kayo mentions Chungking Express, so  I decided to revisit photos from my last trip to Hong Kong as a trial.

I have yet to try it with anything other than travel work but it is certainly something I am going to consider in the future for moments that I can see in my head will suit it.