Shoot for the crop, not the frame

Creative19 March 20266 min

A set is shot in landscape because the room looked good in landscape. Then it is cropped square for the grid, tall for a story, wide for a hero, and each time by somebody who was not on the shoot and does not know which part of the frame carried the idea.

Eighteen months later the library is unusable, the brand looks inconsistent across channels, and everyone concludes that the photographer was the problem. The photographer was not the problem. Nobody decided, before the shutter, where these images were going to live.

The fix costs nothing at the time and everything afterwards. Agree the destinations first — hero, card, square, portrait, story, print — and compose with a safe area that survives all of them. Then deliver every frame already cropped for each, so no one has to guess later.

This is the least glamorous decision in a shoot and the one that determines whether the set is still in use three years on, or quietly replaced at full cost.

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