Why print film rebate?

[mfratt]

(Distracting cliche, yes, but that's what I say when the image doesn't standout /rise above the medium) A minimalist presentation is the safe presentation and some people avoid the safe way of doing things a certain amount of the time.

Very astute point. While a lot of people may print/add the rebate in a cliche way to desperately try and make their photos more interesting, there are those whose photos are interesting in their own right, and the rebate is just part of their style.

If you are going to print the rebate, it should flow with your photo, and should be no more interesting than the paper its printed on or the frame its presented in.

Also, I personally don't like the idea of using a rebate or a border because you had blown out highlights on an edge. It seems like a cop out to me. Burn it in, flash the paper, or do a better job at exposing/developing, but to put a border there for that purpose seems forced and screams that your negatives or your printing weren't good enough.

(For those of you who do this, sorry if that was harsh, just my opinion - please don't take it personally)

And my thoughts on cropping, while i'm at it...

Its always best to get the photo and the composition correct in the camera, and that is something that we should all strive towards. But there are times when you look at the negative, or see it under the enlarger, and you think "Darn, I should have done XYZ." Okay, lesson learned, take that lesson with you next time you're shooting, but that doesn't mean that you throw away/don't print the negative. That doesn't mean that you _have_ to print it as it was shot just because. If you can make a better photo in the end, then do it. If all that was important was the actual original composition, then galleries would be full of negatives and contact prints.

That said, I can see the argument for not cropping. You learn more from looking at a final print with your original composition than you would by making a "quick fix" in the darkroom. Also, limiting yourself (on a personal level) to not cropping will make you think more about your composition when shooting (is this going to be a photo that I'll want to crop later... if so then recompose as necessary).

But I still think that whatever you can do to make the final print as good as it can be is justified.

As for consistency, I don't like to change the aspect ratio when printing. I'll usually leave my easel in the same position and adjust the enlarger as necessary when I decide a photo needs a cropping.

[Jack Dahlgren]

And my thoughts on cropping, while i'm at it...


That said, I can see the argument for not cropping. You learn more from looking at a final print with your original composition than you would by making a "quick fix" in the darkroom. Also, limiting yourself (on a personal level) to not cropping will make you think more about your composition when shooting (is this going to be a photo that I'll want to crop later... if so then recompose as necessary).

Sometimes you can't recompose enough to make the captured image match what you want to capture. Nothing wrong with turning a 4x5 image into a 2x5 panorama is there?

Think of the film as a fishing net. It needs to be big enough for what you want to catch, but there is no shame in using a net bigger than the fish, in fact it is a good idea to carry such a net.

But unlike fishing, everyone is free to make up their own rules to follow. Some may find that inspirational, some may find it limiting.

[mfratt]

Sometimes you can't recompose enough to make the captured image match what you want to capture. Nothing wrong with turning a 4x5 image into a 2x5 panorama is there?

Think of the film as a fishing net. It needs to be big enough for what you want to catch, but there is no shame in using a net bigger than the fish, in fact it is a good idea to carry such a net.

But unlike fishing, everyone is free to make up their own rules to follow. Some may find that inspirational, some may find it limiting.

Oh I do agree with you. I just observed a number of comments regarding consistency in aspect ratio, and was trying to make the point that cropping doesn't automatically imply a change in aspect ratio.

[bob carnie]

This is true , though major cropping on film based work will give the viewer a different grain structure or feel to contend with when viewing prints.
To some this is not an issue , for me it is.

Oh I do agree with you. I just observed a number of comments regarding consistency in aspect ratio, and was trying to make the point that cropping doesn't automatically imply a change in aspect ratio.

[redrockcoulee]

Maybe not rebate re se but at least the entire frame: The first time I saw Keith Carter's work was on a video being shown at Santa Fe and my immediate impression was it was shot on a Hasselblad due to the corners of the image. Another person thought it was large format due to the selective focusing however later in the video it stated that he indeed does use a Hasselblad. When I got home I researched the methods he may have used and discovered the arc and flex bodies, camera bodies that were totally unknown to me at the time.

I have since neither used one of these camera bodies nor tried Carter's method with LF however I do like and now understand his method, it is just not for me.

[Ari]

From Frank Zappa:

“The most important thing in art is the frame. For painting: literally; for other arts: figuratively - because, without this humble appliance, you can't know where The Art stops and The Real World begins. You have to put a "box" around it because otherwise, what is that shit on the wall?”

[Brian C. Miller]

What does it matter how or if something is cropped? 4x5 is crop of 8x10. 6x7 is a crop of 4x5. 6x6 is a crop of 6x7. 645 is a crop of 6x6. And there are so many panoramic crops, too. Come on, guys, the point is to print the interesting part of the negative (or positive). If something should be cropped out, OK. A 4x5 isn't the proper aspect ratio for 11x14. That's the proper aspect ratio for 5x7!

If we were all intent on aspect ratios, then we'd be shooting MF 6x9, (or LF 4x6.5) as that's the closest to the Golden Rectangle. But we don't, we shoot something else. Heck, I don't even have the Golden Rectangle marked out on my ground glass.

I've read and been told from a few sources, don't crop in the camera. You have a huge amount of film real estate there, and it's OK to to leave yourself some wiggle room. That was advice for medium format, and here we are using large format, with some cameras in the freaking humongous format range.

[Roger Thoms]

But cropping to different aspect ratios really bothers me when I see it and wonder why the photographer couldn't get it right in the first place.

I'm not quite following you here. For instance what would be the difference between shooting a 6x12 roll film back verses using a 4x5 sheet and cropping to 6x12. Seems like two viable methods to create a panoramic image.

Roger

[Frank Petronio]

Or 8.634 x 11.794 for that matter ;-)

Lots of the most famous, most loved and/or respected photos were cropped. Most of Walker Evans, WeeGee, heck most of photo-journalism.

If you're going to work with simple equipment -- minimal lenses -- and not dick around like so many "landscape artistes" -- cropping becomes an important part of technique.

[Nicholas Whitman]

Intention. That's the difference.

For example, if you plan a panorama strip out of the center of a 4x5 sheet film that is physical cropping - but it isn't the same as after the fact salvage work.

Using Walker Evans as an example is not an apples to apples comparison.

His hand held, roll film street photography is cropped. With this style of work you shoot from the hip, hell over the shoulder even. You shoot a lot. Then in phase two you chuck a lot out and you crop to perfection. Proportion, grain structure, edges be dammed. All that matters is that fleeting nugget which caught your eye in the first place.

Evans agin. This time with a view camera on a tripod. Some scenes are done from multiple view points often with different focal length lens. Some are presented with a sky or foreground cropped but most are edited to a best view and presented as exposed - full frame.

These two diverse styles are equally valid. The process is intentional and the final product is what counts.

Cropping gets shaky when the photographer lacked clarity of vision at the moment of conception and then after the fact tries to pull a photograph out of the bag.