When digitizing photographs, it can be temping to just focus on the humans. That can be a mistake. There can be clues to the time and place of the photograph in those non-human details. A church (or other building) in the background may help to identify the location or when the photograph was taken. Don’t remove the surrounding structures from the individuals in a photograph.
Clouds and sky are usually fine to crop away.
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Related to crop happy photographers are those who only photo the name and date on those tall old monuments, failing to photo the entire monument which may be a beautiful obelisk, spire, or pillar with stone drapery, etc. On smaller stones I make a point to get on my knees to get a horizontal view so the background behind the stone is visible, with some beautiful results. See 82932496 on Findagrave for example.
Agreed with you 100% on this.