Vindauga

Its entirely possible that I am being unreasonable.

I was recently speaking with a friend of mine who was telling me that she hadn’t yet found a good Photoshop tool that let her put an old style full frame border on her pictures. I said that I thought there was something mildly disingenuous about that. She wanted to know why. So, here it is in basic form.

Putting a full frame style border on a picture is making a claim about the composition of the photograph. The black border that exists in old photographs shows the edges of the negative; it is unique to each camera, like a finger print. The border is imperfect (and this, I think, is important).  In order to have that border when printing a photograph from film you had to be able to show the entire image (there were probably folks that could fake it but faking it highlights my point). This means that your composition had to be exactly what you wanted when you took the picture (I think Polaroids have similar feature). Adding that border is adding a claim about the composition.

Objections

1. The border is purely aesthetic and need not carry that claim. - Sure, a black border can be purely aesthetic but this is a specific kind of black border, one that is intended to imitate a full frame photograph. Because of its imitation, it must carry that concept. A straight black border has uses that I think make it perfectly acceptable but what I am referring to here is the imitation full frame border.

2. The border does not carry that claim because most people don’t know how that border is created. - I don’t think ignorance avoids this problem. Sure, the average person may be unaware of the import of that border but the average person isn’t really who we are concerned with; the average person can’t tell the difference between a real Monet and an imitation but we still want to claim that there is something disingenuous about the imitation. Polaroids, especially the large format ones have a unique quality; each photograph is singular and the color is vibrant and special. But Polaroid color can be imitated in post processing, so why should one prefer a large format Polaroid? Because the Polaroid carries with it the claim that this is exactly the composition the author intended in taking the photo. The post-processing image imitates that claim as well but we privilege the Polaroid because the processed and cropped image does not have those features (only imitations of those features).
3. The border only holds that meaning to an older generation that actually used film, younger folks have never used it and so don’t have the association. -  True. In a few more years very few people will be familiar with film photographs. The border will become merely an effect. But, currently it is not. And, when film is done only by the very few that border will become even more impressive; it won’t be merely an indication of the composition but of the will of the photographer as well.

4. It is an imitation, art is full of imitation. - Yes, but those artists that imitate as a form of art do it knowing full well what they are engaging in; they recognize the meaning beyond what they are imitating and so the content of the art carries not just the meaning of the frame itself but the artists statement about that frame. Using it as an “effect” necessarily means that it is not being used as an artistic statement about imitation or full frame borders. As an effect, it is simply pretty (not that there is anything wrong with being pretty).

5. In a digital world, the picture will never be mistaken for actually being full frame. - Yeah, in things like Flickr the images contains information about the camera which is used and so one can never be deceived into believing that it is in fact a full frame film image. But, that presumes that image will only and ever be seen online. Further, my previous points stand, the imperfect border is still a claim about the composition, if you only wanted a black border you could do that without the imperfection. If you wanted to do a commentary then its being an effect is not really the issue. The use, even in a digital world, of an imperfect border is a reference to the earlier age in which that had specific and direct meaning.

6. But it is a new world, why can’t associations change? - They can. But we might as well as why are they staying the same? In a new and digital world, why imitate an old border? Brownish photographs give the impression of an old photograph, both because of browning during age and because of the way film was processed back then. We imitate that style in an attempt to bring that era to mind; its not just an effect (using stuff merely as an effect is its own sort of problem). I recently produced an image that had this quality, this imitation. The thing is, it hasn’t lost its association. What it has lost is the credibility that the picture might actually be produced in the old manner. One day almost no one will expect a picture to be film (that day is not today) but it is not clear that at that point the associations of full frame will have changed. Also, considering the power of digital media, why emulate something that appeared as a necessity?

7. So what, I like the way it looks. - Great. I am not arguing that it doesn’t look good. I’m claiming that as art it is mildly disingenuous. If you just like the way it looks and want to say nothing more than that, then I’m not talking to you.

Pah! I’m not married to this distinction or any normative claims contained therein. But I do think that putting a faux border on a picture is more than simply an effect whether the person adjusting the picture recognizes it or not.