In my opinion, there is a very interesting balance between having good composition straight out of camera versus relying on cropping to find an interesting composition of the image. While cropping is a powerful tool that we all use, I feel as though having that in the back of my mind while shooting will sometimes cause me to be lazy in the moment because I am telling myself that I will just fix it later. I know this is not a universal experience but personally, I prefer focusing on setting a good composition while I’m shooting.
This image is from an abortion rights protest this summer in Bloomington. These women were just standing there so I had a lot of freedom to try out different compositions while shooting before I settled on one. I focus on the placement of the women and the statue behind them, as a straight on shot would be boring and the statue would be distracting if it was seen from a head-on angle in the background. Instead, I used the vertical directional force to incorporate the statue on person to make the women feel smaller to convey the tone of their message.