Black Borders

[jd callow]

If you wish to have a black border and do not want to file your neg carrier do one of the following:

1. create a neg carrier from 1/8" black gator board. make the opening as large as needed.
2. use an oversized glass carrier and black tape

I've filed carriers, made gator carriers and now only use glass. I also expose as little of the rebate as possible to reduce flare.

 

[firecracker]

I just saw the documentary video/film about HCB today. Those of you who are obsessed about creating or not creating the black borders should see it, too.

I highly recommend it.

 

[Maine-iac]

Sorry, just found your response... pardon my late reply!

I think digital has increased the quantity of photographs taken by a factor of 12,369,438 times or so, without any change in quality. So I think what digital has done is decrease the quality by dilution. Too many people taking too many shots based on too few thoughts. And too many people using basically the exact same tool and getting roughly the same output.

Brooks Jenson has an interesting editorial in the latest edition of Lens Work on just this subject. Apparently Adobe is coming out with a new software database designed to help digital photogs cope with the vastly greater number of images they are capturing. I tend to agree with your point about no great corresponding increase in quality. Analogous to a film photog using a motordrive to excess, I suppose. Same result in the end. Quantity doesn't necessarily translate to quality. Numbers of images are no substitute for well-seen images.

Larry

 

[epatsellis]

An alternative would be to cut a piece of Rubylith or Amberlith to the size of your enlargement, then carefully cut the amount of border you want. After that, you simply lay the ruby/amberlith down over your expose paper and let'er rip.

erie

 

[Ronald Moravec]

Enlarging the cutout in a neg carrier will increase the flatness problems already present in a glassless carrier.

Use a double glass carrier for 4x5 and mask off the stray light as required.

 

[BruceN]

Brooks Jenson has an interesting editorial in the latest edition of Lens Work on just this subject. Apparently Adobe is coming out with a new software database designed to help digital photogs cope with the vastly greater number of images they are capturing. I tend to agree with your point about no great corresponding increase in quality. Analogous to a film photog using a motordrive to excess, I suppose. Same result in the end. Quantity doesn't necessarily translate to quality. Numbers of images are no substitute for well-seen images.

Larry

The same thing happened when militaries went to automatic rifles - the ratio of rounds fired to actual hits went out of sight. Full auto brought on the 'Spray and Pray' mentality. Now whenever I see someone clicking away like that I'll say "Spray and pray, maybe you'll be really lucky and get something." I understand the need to sometimes click away at sporting events and such, but when I see people doing it to rocks and trees I just have to shake my head. You'd think they were at a fashion shoot or something.

I hope my martial analogy doesn't upset any delicate sensibilities.

Bruce

 

[Curt]

:rolleyes: I was reading some back threads and came upon this one on black borders. I was watching the Brett Weston DVD by Art Wright and noticed that photographs taken with his Rollei 66 which is a 2 1/4 x 2 1/4, 6X6 cm, are cropped to rectangular formats. If he didn't have a problem with major cropping then what's with the absolute rule of not cropping of the negative? Crop a contact print lately? That branch of the tree just in the frame? The horizion just a little level?

 

[Lemon Frosted]

A couple months ago I decided I wanted 1/4" black borders for some shots, so i got out the square rule and craft knife with some empty cereal boxes (a good source of stiff cardboard). I cut myself masks for 5x5, 5x7, 8x8, and 8x10. I make the principle exposure, fit the mask into the space (these also help for aligning the easel blades on my infuriatingly inaccurate easel), put my grain focuser on top of it to hold it down, open the easel and burn the edges with a flash light.

Not the most elegant way, and the masks are vulnerable to bending, but it's not like they're hard or expensive to replace.

 

[Maris]

HCB got famous because his talent as a relentless and implacable cameraman coincided with the rise of commercial photographic laboratories and the nascence of picture magazines on the look out for candid photographs.

The laboratories took care of HCB's distaste for personal interaction with the photographic medium but there was no simple cure for the inevitable disharmony between the magazine editors penchant to crop pictures to fit layout and the cameraman's belief in the integrity of his images...until. Until HCB got famous enough to insist (and get away with it) that NO cropping was to be done. The potential for argument simply vanished and HCB could get on with pursuing subject matter instead of magazine design.

Importantly HCB shot enough frames so that something good would inevitably turn up. How many frames? There are stories about HCB exposing a hundred 36 exposure rolls on a weekend (some feat with a knob-wound Leica!) and demanding all the contact sheets to be on his desk first thing Monday morning, and getting them.

The Leica viewfinder is good but not good enough to certify the integrity of an image right to the edge. Nevertheless the "verification border" has become a de facto assurance that nothing important has been censored. It has also become a quality assurance mark so persuasive that fake verification borders, complete with fake frame numbers, regularly appear around pictures created solely in the electronic domain.

 

[jstraw]

I am using a black border on my Holga prints because they're rough, show process, thereby re-enforcing the sense that a photograph is not reality and because it's a useful exersize while becoming acustommed to shooting a square negative.

A lot of the historical reasoning behind using the black frame has always seemed silly to me. The developers of cameras and film formats are not the last word on the best presentation of an image. I crop whenever cropping serves the image. I cannot always place my camera in the best spot...nor do I always have the most appropriate lens...and sometimes the shape of the frame or sheet is just irrelevant to the subject matter and reduces its impact.

All that said, it's useful to learn to shoot to the format. It's an artificial constraint but like writing poetry in a difficult meter, developing the skill has value. Breaking a rule you're incapable of abiding by is not the same as breaking one you've mastered.

As for the subject of "verification." It's such a fallacious conceit. It indicates that the negative wasn't cropped in the printing, sure...but as for demonstrating something about objectivity or truth, crap.

Photography is not objective. The editorial process is at work every time you do or don't release the shutter...every time you decide how you will select an aperture to control depth of field...and every time you position your camera, deciding what's in frame and what's not. As far as I'm concerned, composing a shot to keep something out of frame is no more or less honest than positioning the blades of your easel to accomplish then same thing.

When I use a black border it has to do with aesthetics, not ethics. People that use it to indicate something about their ethics are either being disengenuous, ignorant or cynical.

 

[jmal]

jstraw,

Interesting to see that my thread has reemerged. I tend to agree with you about the ethics of the frame and the repesentation of truth, etc. I also agree that it's important to master the format rather than relying on extensive cropping to correct sloppy photography. Having said that, I thought I'd mention that my initial query had to do with my own aesthetic interests and nothing more. I simply like the look of a very thin black border to "seal" the photo, particularly when there is a very light sky or border. Sometimes the sky or other border objects look best light, so burning in isn't the best solution.

Jmal

 

[jstraw]

jstraw,

Interesting to see that my thread has reemerged. I tend to agree with you about the ethics of the frame and the repesentation of truth, etc. I also agree that it's important to master the format rather than relying on extensive cropping to correct sloppy photography. Having said that, I thought I'd mention that my initial query had to do with my own aesthetic interests and nothing more. I simply like the look of a very thin black border to "seal" the photo, particularly when there is a very light sky or border. Sometimes the sky or other border objects look best light, so burning in isn't the best solution.

Jmal

I would just reiterate the idea that unless the default frame aspect ratio coincidentally happened to be the ideal aspect ratio for the image, I wouldn't refer to cropping as correcting sloppy photography.

One approach is to find the best relationship between the format aspect ration and the subject but I think it's just as legitimate to make a conscious decision to produce (for example) a square print from a 4x5 negative.

 

[Lemon Frosted]

Well, the problem complicates more once you take into account that many of the common print sizes are quite unfriendly to the full frame. It's a rough spot when a love of full-frame composition collides with a love of full-page prints. I have several shots that I personally love, because of their full-frame composition, but they never look quite right printed because I have to print small onto an 8x10 page and then trim.

 

[epatsellis]

lemon, maybe you need to shoot more 8x10 negs... (ducking)

erie

 

[Lemon Frosted]

lemon, maybe you need to shoot more 8x10 negs... (ducking)

erie

Is this your way of making me an offer on a camera?

 

[epatsellis]

there's plenty of 8x10 Calumet's out there, mine cost me a grand total of $56 and a few hours work, not pretty, but gets the job done.


erie