Framing Card Drill

As a photographer the word crop probably brings to mind a task you perform during post-processing to determine what portion of the image you've captured on film should be retained in the final print (presuming you even shoot neg. film!). If you don't shoot transparencies, you may not have considered that the first and best crop you make is when you press your shutter release to capture a rectangular fraction of the whole vista in front of your lens on to film.

With that in mind, here's one approach to using a framing card:

1. With the card in your pocket walk through your target location until Mother Nature grabs you by the lapels, shakes you roughly, and says: "Look at this!" – and in response you say: "Wow!", "Cool!", or "Awesome!" (according to your generation.)
2. Now take out the card, hold it in front of one of your eyes, then move the card nearer or closer. Move the card (not yourself!) about – left and right; up and down - as well as nearer and closer. Don't change your location or stance yet. Depending on your audience, you are (a) looking for a view through the framing card that restores as much of that Wow/Awesome response as possible, or (b) looking for a view that will generate as much of that response as possible in the eyes of your target audience. You don't change your position because the scene from that perspective was striking enough to give you pause. There is a good chance that this is the optimum perspective, so you don't want to lose track of it.
3. If you find one or more likely crops, keep the card in position long enough to memorise where the edges of the frame are and what's within the frame. Next, make your best guess what focal length will give you that exact crop of the scene.
4. If you have that focal length available, proceed to set up your tripod where you are standing, attach the appropriate lens, etc., to capture those crops on film. If you have nearly the right focal length move slightly forward or back to attain a close match in framing.
5. Now you can move around the scene and repeat steps 1 through 4 as needed.