framing

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Many of the topics we’ve discussed so far talk about the relationship between two objects in an image, from their relative distance from the camera to whether one is left or right of the other to visual similarity between two objects. Many of the cues we use to communicate using photographs stem from these sorts of signs. Today I’ll talk about another example: what happens when one image frames another within a photograph. I’ll say that the enclosing object “frames” the enclosed object, but here I’m not referring to picture frames, I’m still talking about parts of the photographic image itself.

These frames tend to serve two ends. Visually, frames in general (and darker frames in particular) often guide the eye toward the center of an image much in the same way that edge-burning does. As a matter of meaning,   framing often provides context for the enclosed subject of the image. I think it’s likely that these two effects are related; our eyes are pulled to the center,   the enclosed object in such a photograph, and as a result that object becomes the primary subject of the image. The frame itself speaks second, not first. (more…)