Apples

Apples

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I helped my mother hang some photos today and was curious about one of them. She had placed a photo (in this case 5"x7") in a frame that was much larger (8"x10"). In my opinion it looks strange and awkward with so much empty space—which I feel is wasted—but she insists that it is actually a style.

Does anyone know of this style? Is there a term for it?

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FWIW, I don't think an 8x10 frame is large for a 5x7 photo. That's only a 1.5" mat on each edge. – coneslayer May 13 '12 at 1:18
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I have to admit, I don't think this is a photography question. Interior design? yes. Photography? No. – John Cavan♦ May 13 '12 at 3:03
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I would say printing and framing is part of the art, yes. I spend a lot of my time printing, matting, and framing my photography, and I consider it a part of being a photographer. – jrista♦ May 13 '12 at 3:10
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@John: Just because it can apply to other forms of image display, that doesn't change the fact that photography is also displayed that way. The question is also explicitly about framing photos, not paintings or anything else. The possibility of broader use does not eliminate a narrower use and therefor make a topic unworthy of our site. – jrista♦ May 13 '12 at 3:49
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@John, well, there are 10 questions tagged as framing, and most of them are about actual frames as opposed to blocking, so framing does indeed seem to be considered a part of photography. – Synetech May 13 '12 at 4:50
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2 Answers

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That's a perfectly accepted and normal style of mounting a print - known as 'matting' a print. The border around just further draws your eye to the photo.

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Well then I guess I’ll have to apologize (and on Mother’s Day too). :-D – Synetech May 13 '12 at 4:53
@synetech No, you just gift her a picture she likes framed in the same framing style that you commented earlier. :) – Regmi Apr 18 at 17:39
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I can think of a photo for which I would choose extra-large borders. Not the frames, but the area between the frame and the photo. 'Matting' the photo, as rfusca explained the term (new to me).

In the photo I have a girl sitting on a smallish rock by a lake, her feet in the water, and face slightly downcast as if she is in her thoughts, far away from present moment. That is her privacy, the lakeside rock, alone there for quite some time. What is she thinking? Perhaps her unborn fatherless baby and her future life with the baby? Can't really tell. But this photo I would put in extra-large borders.

How large? I think I'd make the photo 4" x 4" so that hanging on a wall it would be almost hard to see. But the frames would be at least 5" distance from the edges of the photo to the frame. Totalling in 14" x 14" area inside the frames. That way, I'm trying to distance the person, who is watching the photo, from the girl, who is having her private moment in time. And you don't dare to go closer.

The border around the photo acts almost as a tunneling effect, because you are not seeing anything else in the photo but the girl. The border is large, so it suggests there is a lot of more to see around, the nature, a field of hay or bushes, but you can't really see anything else but the girl sitting over there. The girl has enchanted you.

Back to the question here. I don't think the space around a photo is just wasted space. It is a style, or effect, or a message. I have photos framed to the edge with no borders at all, to bring the subject up close like you were right there yourself in the moment. (Not only at the moment, but in the moment.)

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