Why rectangular?

[BetterSense]

Lenses throw images with round boundaries. Does anyone else ponder why we always crop them into rectangular images?

[adelorenzo]

Put two of those lenses side by side (eg. a pair of eyes) and you now have something that is more rectangular in shape.

[Leigh]

Because frames, binders, paper, books, file folders, and file cabinet drawers are rectangular.

The human eye produces a panoramic image that is much wider than it is tall.

- Leigh

[Heroique]

Am I hearing that the physiology of the eye is the destiny of cropping?

[Tin Can]

I have always been bothered by the sharp edges of any photograph. The abrupt end from image to no image I find very jarring. Round is not a solution. Fade out edges, sorta like infinite vignetting is my ideal.

Has anybody done that? Fade an image into the wall backdrop, using no framing and perhaps matching the fade to the background color and/or pattern.

Wide movies, square format, any containing edge is disturbing.

[Roger Cole]

Sam Wang has done some work with circular images. Sandy King (I think it was) wrote an article about them in View Camera a while back. I find them fascinating:

http://www.btzs.org/Gallery/SamWang/

[Leigh]

Wide movies, square format, any containing edge is disturbing.
So you have a problem looking through windows or doorways???

- Leigh

[Tin Can]

I can look through those fine, but the walls are a problem.

It's likely some mental or physical problem. I cannot tolerate total silence either. I need something visual or auditory almost always, and shutoffs by frame or silence bother me.

I have found I prefer absolute darkness to sleep in, with not a peep of light, fairly easy as I sleep in my darkroom. But as some know I have gone to great lengths to eliminate all light.

I have always wanted to project edge-less movies or slides, not an easy thing to do.


So you have a problem looking through windows or doorways???

- Leigh

[Jac@stafford.net]

I have always been bothered by the sharp edges of any photograph. The abrupt end from image to no image I find very jarring. Round is not a solution.

Oblong? http://www.digoliardi.net/bosse_winona_1892.png

[Nathan Potter]

I think the frame of a photo, or painting, etc. is always distracting because it is not a usual natural shape as found in nature. The eye is drawn to the geometry of the frame thus taking it away from the content in the image and so weakening its impact. Blurring the periphery is not a bad idea - sort of replicating the natural loss of detail at the edge of vision.

Nate Potter, Austin TX.

[paulr]

Many of the basic designs of the camera come from pictorial conventions we're so accustomed to that we don't question anymore (with all due respect to the OP, who is questioning them ;)
A rectangular frame is just one of those conventions. So are view camera movements. We tend to think that our view camera rules of keeping vertical lines parallel while letting horizontal ones converge are based on physics or the physiology of our eyes. But they're based on a pictorial convention that was arrived at through debate and trial and error during the Rennaissance. Artists tried all kinds of ways to depict 3 dimensions on a flat plane. Other methods had their advocates, but Alberti and Columbus won, and people eventually just accepted their conclusions. And now cameras are designed with their rules as a given.

[Tin Can]

Still has demarcation. What I want may be impossible. Perhaps a form of hologram where object float without backdrop edge.


Oblong? http://www.digoliardi.net/bosse_winona_1892.png

[Vaughn]

I blame it on the painters -- why did they use rectangular canvas/frames?

[gleaf]

Once paper became a standardized commercial size and shape then the products cut from a standard industrial paper sheet became appropriately shaped to eliminate and or minimize waste. 17 x 22 inches strikes my memory as being the standard sheet for commercial paper.

[DrTang]

I *think* it might have been..or still is 34x44

from which 22x34 comes...then 17x22...11x17 and finally 8.5x11

[Heroique]

Golden ratio = 1.618 (rounded)

Ratios of “common” film sizes:

3:2 & 9:6 = 1.5
7:6 = 1.17 (rounded)
5:4 & 10:8 = 1.25
7:5 = 1.4
14:11 = 1.27 (rounded)

Of these common aspect ratios, 3:2 looks closest to the golden ratio.

Is it "nature" why so many people "like" 3:2 cropping, or is it "nurture"?

[Bob Salomon]

Let's see:

Super Slides = 4x4cm
Rollei/Hassy = 6x6 cm
shot lots of 5x5" aerial roll film in the USAF as well as 10 x 10"

Not all are rectangular. But most view cameras are.

[Roger Cole]

Let's see:

Super Slides = 4x4cm
Rollei/Hassy = 6x6 cm
shot lots of 5x5" aerial roll film in the USAF as well as 10 x 10"

Not all are rectangular. But most view cameras are.

Those are rectangular Bob.

Oh, they're square, but a square is a rectangle. All squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.

I get what you are saying because we usually refer to camera formats as square versus rectangular, but I think what the OP is questioning is the whole concept of "rectangle" in the most liberal sense of having four straight sides at right angles versus, say, ovals, round images, trapezoids, triangles or any of the geometric shapes with more than four sides or whatever.

[Jac@stafford.net]

There is an aesthetic presumption in cultures. An Old Asian view is that certain artworks are like a scroll with only the horizontal limits recognized, the vertical cognitively dissolving.

[Tin Can]

+1


There is an aesthetic presumption in cultures. An Old Asian view is that certain artworks are like a scroll with only the horizontal limits recognized, the vertical cognitively dissolving.

[Heroique]

This Fibonacci (golden ratio) spiral resting inside a rectangle, close to 2:3, is from an old post by Jim Kitchen.

It might be an argument for a rectangular crop whose visual appeal is inborn to Homo sapiens sapiens, not taught by one of its many cultures. (I think saying "sapiens" twice is necessary for the aesthetic context here). ;^)

Could be a combination – inborn, then reinforced by culture.

[Leigh]

(I think saying "sapiens" twice is necessary for the aesthetic context here). ;^)
Saying "sapiens" once is an unjustified exaggeration.

Saying it twice is an unbridled fantasy.

- Leigh

[paulr]

Let's see:

Super Slides = 4x4cm
Rollei/Hassy = 6x6 cm
shot lots of 5x5" aerial roll film in the USAF as well as 10 x 10"

Not all are rectangular. But most view cameras are.

Geometrically speaking, a square is a rectangle (but not vice-versa).

[paulr]

The golden section is one of many popular rectangles. Others are based on ratios derived from simple geometric shapes, or from the harmonic series (there's a lot of overlap between the two). Robert Bringhurst's excellent Elements of Typographic Style has a fascinating chapter on classical proportions. He points out similar shapes/ratios being popular with cultures that had no cross-polination.

[Roger Cole]

Saying "sapiens" once is an unjustified exaggeration.

Saying it twice is an unbridled fantasy.

- Leigh

110361 110361 110361

Good one. But at least one "sapiens" is needed to identify the correct species of hominid, whether the description is accurate or not.

[Leigh]

But "sapiens sapiens" is not A species... It's a hybrid of five species.

- Leigh

[Jac@stafford.net]

Robert Bringhurst's excellent Elements of Typographic Style has a fascinating chapter on classical proportions

Another gem from the wisdom of the 'net. Thank you so much, Paul.

[Bill Burk]

I always think of telescopes and microscopes when I see circular images.

And binoculars when they are lazy figure eight.

[Darin Boville]

Because frames, like the walls they sort of pretend to be, are easier to build and thus more commonly found as rectangles?

--Darin

[StoneNYC]

*sigh*

Aren't most of you old guys from back when photography first started? Hah!

But seriously.... Because. Glass window panes were rectangular... Which is where glass plates came from... They built the camera around the easily available and already in production items....

[MDR]

Non rectangular frames and images have been accepted for a very long time in the portrait and sometimes landscape world. Round or Oval portrait paintings are quiet common since the Renaissance and probably even before. The Square or Rectangle is the landscape format not the general format imo. The first purpose build portrait camera made round images (Voigtländer Potrait camera) not rectangular ones.

[Doremus Scudder]

Non rectangular frames and images have been accepted for a very long time in the portrait and sometimes landscape world. Round or Oval portrait paintings are quiet common since the Renaissance and probably even before. The Square or Rectangle is the landscape format not the general format imo. The first purpose build portrait camera made round images (Voigtländer Potrait camera) not rectangular ones.

+1 Beat me to it! I believe that the first Kodak Brownie cameras took round images as well. Oval framing was de rigeur for lots of photo portrait studios from the very beginning of the business.

Randy,

I hear you, however, about the frame. I have a different approach. I embrace the frame, the selective slicing of a photographic image out of the infinite tapestry of the universe. The frame in my photographs is me. I'm telling the viewer, "This is what I chose to show you; this is my window on the world."

Round, oval or other discreet shapes are all frames. I haven't experimented with anything but rectangles, but I use plenty of different aspect ratios of those. However, you may prompt me to make an excursion into the curvy. It just seems a bit more complicated than using a Rototrim to get precise print borders. I'll have to get out the knife and the large French curves... Food for thought.

Best,

Doremus

[Struan Gray]

One of the many singular things about the late Baroque, is that it is probably the only major cultural period in which asymmetry was valued as an aesthetic ideal. If rectangles and tondos do not suit, perhaps Randy should try the rocaille.

Victorians and Edwardians were fond of vignettes, where the photograph fades out before meeting the frame edge, and of architectural shapes for the inner edge of the frame, so that the monotony of the surrounding line is broken.

Another option would be something like the C17th peephole paintings and perspective boxes. There is a danger of being twee.

And then there are art games, like photographs whose frames are the floor plans of the rooms they are in. Twee^2.

Google Maps is probably your best bet.

[Oren Grad]

I believe that the first Kodak Brownie cameras took round images as well.

The original "Kodak", actually - before the Brownie name was introduced:

http://www.vintag.es/2012/02/kodak-no1-circular-snapshots.html

The camera had a round mask built-in:

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/10/01/article-2439904-186D40E500000578-2_634x407.jpg

Which leads to more focused questions (pun not intended!): why did Eastman use the circular mask for his first mass-market roll film camera? And when and why did he abandon it?

[Peter Gomena]

Maybe the round masks were used to cleanly cut off the blurrier edges of meniscus lens images.

I made a some round images a few years back and really enjoyed the look and making them. I used a 130mm lens from an old folding Ansco roll film camera on an 8x10. Would like to do it again if I can assemble the right lens and format.

[paulr]

Just as window glass may have influenced photographs, stretcher frames may have influenced painting, once there was a move from fresco to oil on canvas. It's easier to make a rectangular stretcher frame than any other shape.

In either medium, there's no obligation to use whole surface, and not everyone did (Struan's post on the Baroque, etc.). But having a rectangle in front of you has got to exert some influence.

[sanking]

Sam Wang has done some work with circular images. Sandy King (I think it was) wrote an article about them in View Camera a while back. I find them fascinating:

http://www.btzs.org/Gallery/SamWang/

Sam has worked with round images extensively, both with 4X5" and 5X7" film cameras, and now with digital.

www.samwang.us

We went on a trip last week to a barrier island off the Georgia coast and he was making round images with a full frame DSLR with wifi, secured to a very tall pole, and controlled partially from a cell phone and/or iPad. I have not seen any of the work yet.

Sandy

[Tin Can]

NOW, I remember! I have been influenced by evil Disneyland. About 1969 I saw a California Disneyland movie in the round. The theater had no chairs, you stood up for better head twisting. They provided handrails to keep people from falling down. The images gave everyone vertigo. 360 degree with no left or right frame. Images would would come out of edgeless darkness.

Since then there have been planetarium night sky shows and other uses of hemispherical viewing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle-Vision_360%C2%B0

http://www.adlerplanetarium.org/shows/

Major visual influence on me that I had forgotten. Ah, the 60's where we thought anything was possible.

btw, I never went to anything Disney again.

[Roger Cole]

Sam has worked with round images extensively, both with 4X5" and 5X7" film cameras, and now with digital.

www.samwang.us

We went on a trip last week to a barrier island off the Georgia coast and he was making round images with a full frame DSLR with wifi, secured to a very tall pole, and controlled partially from a cell phone and/or iPad. I have not seen any of the work yet.

Sandy

Thanks for the info Sandy. I've been meaning to find a way (several possibilities, easiest to do in printing with an easel mask I guess) to experiment with round images some myself.

One reason, or maybe set of reasons, I don't think anyone has mentioned is simply the convenience of film shapes and the film handling within a camera. Sheets could be made in any shape but holding them flat and loading them would seem to be easiest for rectangles (including squares, of course.) And when film is coated on a large sheet, cutting rectangles allows for no waste which would always happen with curved sides. For roll film, transporting it through the camera seems to me to pretty much require a long strip of film straight on two sides. The tops and bottoms could be curved if you wanted to design the film aperture that way, but you'd lose film area that would be unusuable, more than you do with frame spacing for rectangles. Of course you could also curve the film aperture on the sides but then you'd waste even more film area.

[dsphotog]

or.... make special viewing glasses with round viewing portals.

[ROL]

www.samwang.us

Fascinating. Puts me in the mind of doing something naughty.

[Jim Galli]

I blame it on the prehistoric indians of Nevada. Every image they made is on square rocks. Everybody else is just a copycat.

Here's a page (http://tonopahpictures.0catch.com/Wee_Petzvals/Wee_Petzval_96mm.html) where I did round images and made them square and you can click on them back and forth to decide if you like them one way better than the other. (mostly you probably won't like them at all, but it was an interesting idea)

I also blame picture framers. They charge more for round frames.

My momma always said . . .