aspect ratio

[Sirius Glass]

But who prints edge to edge?

I do when I am going to display the print on PlakiIt Flushmount [http://www.plak-it.com/product/plak-it-flushmount/] or on a metal sheet, but not when I frame with a mat because I want the mat to be on top of the print.

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[DREW WILEY]

I got rather miffed when someone I once sold a bunch of prints to damaged a few of the frame, then took the print to a local frame shop,
who simply trimmed them all down so he could use pre-fab frames. Then he made the top and bottom mat margins equal, the way it is
done nowadays, not because it looks better, but because they are too damn lazy to do it right.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I have done a great deal of thinking about aspect ratio but have never been able to develop a rationale for why the normative pictorial ideal, i.e., 4:3, has been historically embraced. For me, the 24 X 36 format evidenced with full frame 35mm photography is too stressed, too much an increase in perceptual tension. The 6 X 6 format that is used with the TLR is, to me, too often too tame, too ‘square’. But I readily admit that some subjects benefit, indeed demand, such unorthodox ratios for best effect.

We are told, and tests, including historical evaluations predating photography, bear this out: the 4:3 (or 3:4) ratio is ideal for most purposes. However, is this ‘universal’ predilection ‘merely Western’ (mandated by cultural hegemony) or, rather, is there something about the human mind (inherent, divorced from cultural norms) which ensures its lasting legitimacy? Was the 24 X 36 ‘forced’ into the photographic paradigm or was its emergence due more to pragmatism and simplicity since it is precisely twice the size of the cinematic ideal of 3:4?

Of course, there are those reading this who will say, regularly, that they stray from this ‘ideal’, but those ‘deviants’ cannot deny this hitherto culturally established norm. Renegades: you might stray for creative purposes, or to found a personal image identity, but, you know that you are straying from a norm.

For me, this ‘ideal’ offers equanimity and solace, albeit, certainly, not for all subjects. I am the first to admit proper deviation therefrom becomes, at times, a trenchant necessity for certain subjects which might be better portrayed within a different format, thereby informing a different state of mind. Indeed, the creativity embedded within the craft of photography enduringly (and appropriately) challenges many established norms but, again, as a creative deviance, a diversion sought to enhance the intended aesthetic.

My query is thus: Is the established ideal format the result of vapid pragmatism or is there something about this ratio’s form that provides solace due to a sense of completeness and structural integrity for the human mind? - David Lyga

I stick to the golden ratio of phi1.618

 

[Diapositivo]

This made me remember something.
My first camera was a Kodak Instamatic: 126 format, square images.
Then I had a Polaroid (EE44 if memory serves) and, if memory serves, the format was square.
Then when I was 14 I bought my first SLR.
That changed everything, because for every shot I had to decide first whether it was an horizontal, or vertical, shot. Well, that was somehow an "unwelcome" complication to me.
Now, if I had to compose using a square format, I think I would in any case compose in a "rectangular" way, and crop after. The subject is not in front of us. It's our mind that "looks for" the subject probably by having a "frame" somehow determined in our mind. Then we may find a "square" subject, that certainly happens, but I think we start with a "rectangular prejudice" in our mind when we "look for" a good shot.
(How many 126 shooters print in square format, after all?).

This leads me to believe that 126, and Polaroid format were square because they were supposed to be, and probably actually were, "easier" to understand for an unsophisticated photographer. Less thinking involved.

In any case, an uncle of mine has some XVIII century old Japanese prints at home, and they are more or less in the European paper proportion (even though is rice paper of centuries ago). Not very meaningful statistically, but maybe there is an aesthetical preference, in human beings, for a rectangular composition (horizontal, or vertical) regardless of culture and epoch.

 

[RobC]

no, its just easier and less wasteful to make paper in squares and rectangles rather than circles or any other shape which doesn't cut easily in straight lines without waste.