One of the biggest mistakes made by the photographer just starting out, is standing too far from the subject. Get close and fill the frame. Think about what is in the frame on all four sides. For the uninitiated, this takes practice. Remember the camera sees everything within the rectangle and the only way to be sure to exclude things you don't want in the photo is for you to learn to see them as well. Of course you can always crop the photo at a later time but when you do you are causing your image to be less effective. If you crop too much you will be losing quality as you enlarge the remaining parts of the photo.
The best cropping is done in the viewfinder, not on the computer screen. Get close and include what's important. When photographing people, it is not necessary to back up to include a person's feet in the photo unless there is something about the feet that are an important part of the picture. Shoot people from the waist up, the lower portion of the body is generally a waste of space and only results in making people's faces smaller in the finished photo.
Ruskin, a nineteenth century artist, once wrote that "...the art of drawing is the art of elimination." An artist with a brush or pencil can leave things out by simply ignoring them. An artist with a camera has to figure out a way to eliminate unwanted parts of the scene by other means. This can be accomplished by changing your point of view, changing lenses or altering the depth of field on the camera. Sometimes it is necessary to move the subject to a new location or wait for the subject to move on its own. Very often, it's just a matter of standing closer.
A close up photo has much greater impact.
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