Square Format

[Vaughn]

And with many, you opened up a two-page album cover and you might get a panoramic image, or two.

 

[dave olson]

I shoot 6x7, 6x6, and 6x4.5. I like the square because it allows for cropping, or keeping it as shot. So much depends on the subject matter plus are you shooting it in a studio or outside. In the long run, as long as it is a quality shot I think the question of a rectangle or square is moot. If you are selling your work for publication the art directors will tell you what they want.

 

[MattKing]

Everyone is missing the definitive answer, the largest and most popular distribution of creative images in history, ALL of which were square. LP record album covers. Beatles? Square. Dylan? Square. Mitchell? Square. Need I keep going. It's squares all the way down. If all these other formats were so great, they would show up here, but no... Game over. Squares 100 billion, every other possible format, 0.

>mic drop< .....

And more recently, CD album covers.

 

[abruzzi]

but that really just because an oval CD or album wouldn't really work, so the album sleeves and CD jewel cases were the smallest structurally sound case for the content. Also, I never really paid any attention to album covers--they seemed like formalities--after all, once the beatles left theirs white, no one else coud get away with it without seeming to jump on coattails (also, I prefer the black album--"Smell the Glove".)

 

[MattKing]

but that really just because an oval CD or album wouldn't really work, so the album sleeves and CD jewel cases were the smallest structurally sound case for the content. Also, I never really paid any attention to album covers--they seemed like formalities--after all, once the beatles left theirs white, no one else coud get away with it without seeming to jump on coattails (also, I prefer the black album--"Smell the Glove".)

Every frequently encountered mode of presentation drives framing choices. That includes all the standard frame sizes, as well as digital displays.
Are you really saying that this cover was a "formality"?

 

[MattKing]

Or this one:

 

[MattKing]

How about this one?:

 

[Truzi]

Every frequently encountered mode of presentation drives framing choices. That includes all the standard frame sizes, as well as digital displays.
Are you really saying that this cover was a "formality"?
View attachment 331256

After abruzzi's comment all I can think here is handkerchief code, lol.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

So, you're not a big fan of 16:9 digital?

16:9 AND digital, brrrrrr....

But as with all art-related topics, there is no definite answer. Anything may work sometimes or not.

Josef Koudelka abandoned his Fuji 617 to shoot a digital Leica S2 with the sensor and viewfinder screen masked to 17:6.

Advertisers produce commercials for TV which are 16:9. What about laptops and monitors also 16:9?

 

[Dan Daniel]

And more recently, CD album covers.

And at quantities that boggle the imagination, there is Instagram. Its format? Take a guess... go on....

Square.

And with many, you opened up a two-page album cover and you might get a panoramic image, or two.

Exactly- 2 squares next to each other are still.... Squares.

See the pattern here? Face it, everything must submit to the superiority of the square. Even Robert Frank had to accept that the square was best for Exiles on Main Street. Square rule; all others are mere pretenders.

And to those who point to articles like this, looking at great paintings as a model for proportions and sizes for art, note that square is the rarest shape for great art, and we all know that being the rarest makes something the greatest of all time. Other proportions are a dime a dozen.

A Note From My Obsession-Compulsion

By John Camp There have been a number of brief inconclusive discussions on TOP about the matter of size as regards photographs. I contend that it’s an important consideration for those making photographic art for other people. But, very often,...

theonlinephotographer.typepad.com

​

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

How about this one?:
View attachment 331258

The picture isn't square if you remove the verbiage at the top. Framing is really horizontal. Of course this is done for many pictures on albums as well as on magazines which require a vertical format. Space is left for titles and other verbiage.

Of course albums lend themselves to square photos, but on many album covers the photos themselves are not square.

 

[abruzzi]

Maybe I just owned very different albums, but I have never seen the ones above--they are from musicians I ever listened to, and of every album I can ever think i (listened to or not) I can onlty remember two album covers--the Beatles one where they are walking across the street (don't know the name of the album)--just because its so famous, and one with a man dressed like JS Bach standing in front of a Moog modular synthesizer (Switched on Bach) which is more comic than great photography.

All the album covers I see are pleasant but forgettable:

Amazing music, but boring presentation (with a non-square rectangle by the way).

 

[Don Heisz]

Everyone videes that triangles are superior.

 

[abruzzi]

A camera that took isosceles triangles, but inverted the gate every shot would be kind of cool, but probably pretty limited.

 

[MattKing]

The picture isn't square if you remove the verbiage at the top. Framing is really horizontal. Of course this is done for many pictures on albums as well as on magazines which require a vertical format. Space is left for titles and other verbiage.

Of course albums lend themselves to square photos, but on many album covers the photos themselves are not square.

I've done a fair bit of work that was intended to be used with text added. It requires a particular compositional approach.
The shared images aren't cropped to a different shape. They are square, with the knowledge that the compositional elements need to leave room for a blend between photo and text.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

I've done a fair bit of work that was intended to be used with text added. It requires a particular compositional approach.
The shared images aren't cropped to a different shape. They are square, with the knowledge that the compositional elements need to leave room for a blend between photo and text.

I understand. The point I was making that sans the part for text, the framing of the picture portion is no longer a square.

 

[MattKing]

I understand. The point I was making that sans the part for text, the framing of the picture portion is no longer a square.

The part of the image behind and around the text is definitely an important part of the image!

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

The part of the image behind and around the text is definitely an important part of the image!

I agree. But, there's no real way to tell what the original format of the camera was in most cases. Were most album covers taken with square format cameras? Or were there other formats (or mainly) and just cropped to fit the square album?

 

[DREW WILEY]

Dan - you're the one missing the whole point. Just invent a record or CD which is oblong instead of round, and then everyone will need rectangular sleeves and containers instead. But nowadays, with people so often listening to music simultaneously to rectangular screen viewing, wouldn't all those square shots be like a fish out of water? Now CD's aren't used for anything but skeet shooting.

So, lets say you're a studio photographer who just happens to bag an album contract. Are you going to go out an buy a Hassie system when you've got a 6X7 or 4X5, or even 8x10 on site? Of course not. And an awful lot on-the-fly shots that might find their way onto the now almost antiquated cover trade, done at concerts, were often 35mm. It's not like everything needs to be ultra-crisp on those things.

Square was always a default anyway, for people quickly grabbing a camera and not even paying attention to which side was up or left or right. Didn't matter. Just flip the neg one way or the other, and hope the repro dept folks weren't as stoned as the musicians themselves.

 

[MattKing]

It doesn't really matter - the people shooting with album covers in mind shoot to a square. Or to whatever other shape they might be asked to shoot to.
Just like I used to shoot 35mm film to something like a 4/3 frame - because the newspaper I was working on frequently used that size "art" to illustrate stories.
I clearly remember my friend and colleague on the art desk, who was tasked with editing these sort of things, working on one such print of mine. She looked up at me with a mixture of exasperation and admiration and said something to the effect of: "you always seem to give me stuff that is only fits perfectly if cropped in one particular way!". They could always cut words to make my photos fit

 

[madsox]

Everyone videes that triangles are superior.

View attachment 331274

Yes, my droogs all agree!

 

[Don Heisz]

Were most album covers taken with square format cameras?

Lots of album covers have the image wrap around to the back - not square at all. But I would imagine a lot of album covers were shot using Hasselblads or Rolleiflexes. And, of course, lots weren't shot at all.

 

[Dan Daniel]

So, lets say you're a studio photographer who just happens to bag an album contract....

These days I would probably just go to Instagram and steal a few shots and let an AI bot blend them together. Who needs a studio when you have an ipad and a little data left on your phone plan?

And who needs a fishing license when you have Photrio?

 

[DREW WILEY]

AI ... What does that mean? Artificial Idiocy? Don't we have enough of our own?

 

[kennethwajda]

Square is simple to compose. I think of creating a record album cover. http://Longmontlakeproject.com is all 6x6.