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Lecture: Active Frame

Drew UniversityART 130 / Photography I

Professor Rebecca Soderholm

From The Nature of Photographs, by Stephen Shore:

Where a painter starts with a blank canvas and builds a picture, a photographer starts with the messiness of the world and selects a picture. A photographer standing before houses and streets and people and trees and artifacts of a culture imposes an order on the scene - simplifies the jumble by giving it structure. He or she imposes this order by choosing a vantage point, choosing a frame, choosing a moment of exposure, and by selecting a plane of focus.

There are four central ways in which the world in front of the photograph is transformed: focus, time, frame and flatness.

They are also the means by which photographers express their sense of the world, give structure to their perceptions and articulations to their meanings.

Frame:

A photograph has edges, the world does not. The edges separate what is in the picture from what is not.

Passive Frame:

For some pictures the frame is relatively passive, it is simply where the pictures end.

When we look at a picture with a passive frame, we know that the world continues beyond the edges of the frame, but we are content with what is “inside”.

The following pictures are examples of:

Passive Frame

Stephen Shore

Stephen Shore

Richard Renaldi

Active Frame:

For other pictures the frame is more active; the structure of the picture begins with the frame and works inward. The edges of the frame are activated, and we are very aware that the world continues beyond the boundary of the photograph.

The following pictures are examples of:

Active Frame

Robert Frank, Funeral

Collier Schorr

Lee Friedlander

Lee Friedlander

Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards

Eugene Richards

Subjectivity:

Whether a picture utilizes a passive or active frame can be somewhat subjective. Or, a picture can contain elements of both.

When you are shooting, become aware of the edges of the frame and how they affect the content of your photographs. Can you add tension to the edges? What can you do to remind us that the world continues beyond the edges of the photograph?

How would you assess the following photographs in terms these ideas?

Stephen Shore, Luzzaro, Italy

Lee Friedlander

Student Work

Brittany Lyons

Kether Tomkins

Jeana Wunderlich

Kim Roberts

Lissa Sanchez

Elio Barrera

Bubu Oraegbu

Jaime Ballesteros

Jaime Ballesteros