Apparently there are different views on this. A recent post said "It works fine if I want to have the neg in black with that 'I'm artsy' edge of the negative showing.
I asked Michael Smith, one of the leading contact printers, why he always trims his borders, and he said "It's stupid" to show them and that only Avedon, with his white backgrounds, can get away with it. (I hope I'm paraphrasing accurately.)
My own view, though not strongly held, is that showing the border is a statement that the image has not been cropped or enlarged, which gives it a certain honesty that it wouldn't otherwise have.
People who do Polaroid transfers almost always show the edges as some kind of artistic statement. Isn't this essentially the same thing?
I'm open to other opinions on this issue.
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