I have been thinking a lot about the “full frame” border that film photographers stick around their pictures to imply that they both saw something, someone, or otherwise; and framed it so well, that they need to prove it by showing the full frame. This of course is my narcissism describing why I think people use the black border; but in this day and age, I question the need to see your perfectly framed photograph with a black border showing me how awesome you are at composing images. Now that is not to say that I think that all photographs in the history of photography, should not have black borders, I am specifically speaking to this instant in time.

Photographers started to use the big black frame as a way to prove that something was photographic. After photography was [sort of] accepted as art after Stieglitz, Steichen and the like, the first black and white documentary crew started to show both that something was a photograph, and that their entire frame was pleasing. In that time frame, and really up until maybe (and this is a stretch) the early eighties, that made sense. Photography had yet to make its stamp as ART in the market, and digital had not yet come around.

If we fast forward to now, and take those same ideas that earlier adopters of the black frame were using it for, there is are only a few reasons I can think of using it for.

1: You still think that showing your whole frame is important. It proves that you are a super awesome photographer and that your frame is so perfect, you need to show the world how fucking awesome you are.

2: Aesthetically, you think a black boarder is more pleasing to the eye, or that your pictures need that black border to pop more. I can understand this reasoning, but please don’t think that if you scan your negatives and leave all the kodak, fuji, whatever film you use + sprocket holes and whatever that I trust you. First of all its digital. If you think along the lines of part one even a little bit, I am already questioning you. This is a DIGITAL medium! The validity of your photograph is already in question and now that you put your black ring of “truth”, or “the moment”, or “awesome gaudiness” behind it makes me question it even more. In this age, how do I know that you did not just drop a picture into some sprocket creating Photoshop action? How do I know that you did not just crop that whole image; film, digital, or otherwise, and then just drop it into another image you scanned in to show your “full frame”? If you want a black border, drop it in a black border and leave it at that. I do not need to see your film type, or your sprockets, or your numbers littered all around your image.

3: You are naive enough to think that it “looks cool”, “rock-star”, or “old-school.” I do not even know what more to comment on this category. The description does enough itself.

4: Nostalgia for the good ol’ days.

and

5: The only good (which I say apprehensively) reason, is that you are playing with the tradition or idea of the full frame. Maybe you want to reference the full frame because you are nostalgic for a time and are trying to play with that. Or maybe you want to make pictures and drop them into a black frame with KODAK 12B on the side to comment on the full frame idea.  Or something that is more interesting than all above stated reasons.

Now this is not to say that I do not like the sprockets and other full frame, lets call it, memorabilia. But I am saying that both on and offline, think why? Why am I using this old tool to prove how awesome I am at photography that I really need to make this 30×40 print with an inch of that being KODAK 400 PORTRA NC littering the image. It takes me an extra two minutes of looking to get past the fact that someone decided that was necessary before I even look at the image itself. I have to run through the above list to decide what is going on, then decide if I like that idea, and the move ahead through the image. Maybe it is just a small thing that gets to me specifically; but if one is putting that much effort into deciding to include something like that in the image, then I would think it to be important enough to decide whether or not it is working or not.