Michael,
I am much of a print-maker as an image maker. I originally showed the entire coated area around the pt/pd print (using a coating rod, this would be at least 3/8 inch on each side -- usually slightly wider on the long ends). I would mat showing up to an inch of the white paper around the black. Basically I wanted to show the whole print, not just the image.
While the above method was quite nice, the window itself was 10'x13" or so...and needed to have an over-all mat size of 20x24 to look good. It became important to match the print paper with the matboard color, and as I was changing papers occasionally (due to supply, changes within the paper itself, etc), this style of matting became difficult to present as a consistant group of photographs. After some thought, I reduced the size of the window opening to include just the 1/8" or so of black around the print...using an 8-ply over-mat and a black wood 16x20 frame. The result is quite stunning (bias warning!
).
I do not have anything to "prove" per se. I can see this way of presentation as an out-growth of how I presented my silver prints (drymounting the trimmed print with an over-sized window), and more importantly, as part of my reason and method of photographing.
For me photographing is about the art of seeing. I artificially place barriers in front of myself by printing full frame and without burning or dodging. It forces me to see more intensly as I wander through the redwoods, etc...knowing that I must see and reconize the light -- and transform/transfer that light onto the negative and then the print without further manipulation of the relationship of the tones of the scene (of course exposure/developement, print contrast, and color do get manipulated).
So while I do not care if others know I use the whole negative or not, it is important to me that I do.
One other consideration, I do not wish to dry-mount a platinum print of a carbon print...as both have the potential of outlasting the paper they are on. So unless I want to have the window cover part of the image, I am limited in presentation methods.
Avedon used a white background for many of his portraits -- that is when he used the black rebate of the film to give the images a boundary. One does not see it when he uses a gray background. It seems to me as primarily a framing device which is, or became, part of the image itself. So in this sence, yes, I use the black border as part of the final image/print...thus part of my vision.
Vaughn