A square is a view-finder

I first started thinking about the square as a view-finder and it's use in PHOTOGRAPHY!

A study of cropping 
– Does editing an image give it new meaning?

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Selecting an area to be viewed puts importance on it – adds value! People question why has it been selected, try to make sense of it, give it meaning. (READ – El Lizzitsky, Susan Sontag)

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Makes us see the banal through fresh eyes (Peter Greenaway Stairs project) Psychogeography.

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Composition – What is considered beautiful? Is this effected by cultural differences, social class, job, generation, gender, political beliefs, the newspaper/magazine read, TV channel preferred. Do people that work with/study images (designers, photographers, artists) read images differently to people that don’t?

_Break the composition rules – Golden 1/3s. Chop off heads etc.

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Historical & Cultural differences about perspective (1 point perspective v 3 point perspective – Hockney, Renaissance)

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Amateur photos – captured random moments, holiday snaps etc, can we make them mean something with cropping?

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How much does cropping an image alter it’s meaning? Ask range of people if they can identify story of picture, or do they put their own spin on it? Can we influence what people see with words? Juxtaposition, make meaning/sense of something from nonsense??

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The camera never lies (yes it does, can see more than the eyes 3° focus range) Do people believe photography is telling the truth today? Retouching etc.

_What is the role of photography today compared to 100+ years ago?