Framing

~ Perspective ~
'Magdalenas Yard', Hildesheim, Germany

www.photographyblogger.net or http://www.flickr.com/photos/littlenelly/1428439851/

According to John Szarkowski's "Introduction to a Photographer's Eye," framing is "the line that separates in from out and the act of choosing and eliminating." The borders of a frame create a relationship between all the elements within the shape of the frame by creating a focus on the image.  In a sense, a frame can intentionally or unintentionally crop the image.  However, Szarkowski reminded his readers how unattractive the edges of the images were by stating "parts of figures or buildings or features of landscape were truncated" since the plate could only capture a certain size image i.e. 8 inches by 10 inches.  Therefore, adding a frame created a more clean cut focus on the image.  During the first fifty years of photography, the edges of the images were not neat, shifting the focus of the image away from the actual image.  In essence, framing creates a central focus on the image while covering up the edges of the image.

The photograph above is from Google Images.  I selected this specific image because the circle "frame" allows viewers to centrally focus on the landscape that is in the distance. The black metal wheel-like element has a smaller ring within an outer ring, attached by spokes like a wheel you would see on a horse-driven carriage.  Through the smaller ring, off in the distance, is what looks like a mansion or a beautiful university campus that has white buildings with many windows and red-brown upside down "v" roof tops.  Also, right in the middle and behind all of the white buildings are three gray buildings.  The middle gray building has more of a rectangle/square shape and the two gray buildings, one on each side of the middle gray building, are more cylindrical in shape.  The two cylindrical shaped gray buildings have a pale pastel green colored roof top in the shape of a cone; the rectangular/square shaped gray building has a pale pastel green colored roof top in the shape of a pyramid.  Still viewing through the smaller ring, in front and below the buildings is a sizable lush green courtyard.  There are flower bushes and leafy trees lining the courtyard.  There are two cement pathways that go horizontally and vertically down the middle of the courtyard, dividing the grass in equal quadrants.  Where the two cement paths meet in the center of the courtyard is a little metal gazebo, surrounded with more flower bushes.  By looking at the entire image as a whole, the sky is blue like you would see on a perfect sunny day.  Outside the smaller ring, within the outer ring, and in between all the spokes is mainly the continuing part of the lush green courtyard in the bottom two-thirds of the image; the top one-third of the image as a whole is the sky.

This particular image I selected relates to the readings since the smaller ring acts like a frame and focuses in on the beautiful buildings along with a portion of the lush green courtyard and bright blue sky.  This particular image does not have a traditional square or rectangle frame with blunt, straight edges to essentially hide the rough edges Szarkowski stated in his chapter.  The image has a circular frame which could possibly have a deeper significance.  I do not know what kind of camera took this picture or the exact time of day this picture was taken, but you can tell the exposure did not take long at all to capture since there is an obvious shadow on the bottom one third of the image.  Again, not knowing many details of this photo prevents me from saying with confidence that this picture was altered in some way to make it look more appealing.  But the information I do have is 'Magdalenas Yard', Hildesheim, Germany.  With that information, I searched on Google to see if 'Magdalenas Yard' is the actual name of the landscape.  However, it seems as though the photographer of this image simply gave his photograph a title since Magdalenas has many definitions that do not relate to each other.  I did some more searching and found that part of the image in the picture is part of St Mary's Cathedral and St Michael's Church at Hildesheim.  Since this image is of a church, I would think this image is pure and whole, meaning it was not altered in any way.  The natural sunlight shining brightly adds to the beauty of the image by bringing out the sharp and clear details and colors.  Even the detail of the black carriage wheel is clear since  you can tell part of the smaller ring does not have the black color, but more of a silver color.  As mentioned previously, through the smaller ring the buildings are seen off in the distance behind the courtyard.  This perspective relates to vantage point because it "gives us a sense of the scene, while withholding its narrative meaning." (Szarkowski) In addition, in bottom center of the small ring, you can see a staircase hand rail which signals viewers there are stairs leading downward towards the courtyard.  This is significant because we now have a better perspective of where certain elements in the image are located.  The vantage point is looking down towards the courtyard where as the buildings seem to be at eye level but off in the distance.