Meet Jill Sipkins, a recent art major and journalism graduate of Wisconsin University and one of our esteemed instructors at the Picture Perfect School of Photography (PPSOP). In the first image, I deliberately composed the type of composition we commonly see in beginner classes at the school. By now I am sure the problem is obvious to all of you: Jill does not even come close to filling the frame. If I just crop it in Photoshop, as shown in the second photo, the composition is better, but the image is severely limited as to how large it can be, since you have now cropped away about 60 percent of your pixels. You might be able to salvage a print size up to 5 × 7 but no larger.

Alternatively, I can simply pick myself up and walk a few steps closer to Jill, as shown in the third opposite. This way I end up with the same frame-filling composition but with 100 percent of my pixels, and I can easily generate a 16 × 24–inch (poster-size) print if desired.

First image: Nikon D3X with 70–300mm lens at 70mm, f/6.3 for 1/400 sec., ISO 100; Second image: Nikon D3X with 70–300mm lens at 280mm, f/6.3 for 1/400 sec., ISO 100