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Matting and Framing Your Photograph

© 2009 David Kachel

The reason for this little tutorial is that I am a photographer, not a framer. I am also not a dentist. You should no more trust me to do your matting, framing, and dentistry, than you should trust your framer and dentist to provide you with fine art photographs. Yes, I can matte and frame photographs and do so for exhibitions, etc. But I cannot do as good a job as a professional framer and would have to charge as much or more. It makes no sense.

However, there are an awful lot of framers out there who don’t know any more about framing photographs than I know about dentistry. So this tutorial is the result of me feeling guilty that you might get stuck with a bad job, that is to say, one even worse than I might do, if I don’t tell you what to look for. Whatever you do, don’t assume that your trusted framer knows how to deal with fine photographs. The vast majority, do not. Read this monograph. Then make sure your framer measures up.

Matting and framing a photograph is a very simple subject, needlessly complicated by a mixture of ignorance and dishonesty. You only need to know a little bit to make certain your framer does it right the first time.

Photographs are made on paper (with some exceptions). Paper has changed over time. Paper made more than a couple of centuries ago, if well cared for, is still here today and in great shape. Paper made twenty years ago is already yellowing and crumbling, even if well cared for. Why?

Earlier papers were made from cotton while modern papers are made from wood pulp. This is why museums and libraries have centuries old documents that are in great shape and decades old documents in awful shape.

Cotton is stable, contains no harmful chemicals and therefore can last indefinitely. Cotton papers and matte boards are more expensive to make.

Wood pulp contains acid. Acids are destructive to the wood pulp based paper itself and to anything in contact with it. Wood pulp also contains lignin. Over time lignin breaks down and produces acids. So even if you manage to remove the acid from wood pulp, eventually the lignin will produce more. Some mounting boards and papers made from wood pulp are buffered to counteract the acid they will produce in the future. This delays destruction. It does not prevent it. Wood pulp papers and mount boards are cheaper to make.

All photographic papers made for conventional, silver-gelatin, develop-it-in-a-darkroom use, are wood pulp papers and though of high quality and not likely to crumble any time soon, are less than ideal. Photographers and museums have traditionally matted silver-gelatin photographs in materials made from cotton even though it is highly likely the photograph will deteriorate long before the cotton matting materials. The reason for this is that inferior matting materials will hurry the process of deterioration while cotton will not. If an analog photograph is not B&W and/or not made on the best paper, deterioration will occur at a vastly accelerated rate despite the quality of the matting and framing materials. Resin coated B&W and color papers are notoriously unstable and can literally begin to yellow in a few months. (Just for reference: never, ever believe anything you are told about improved resin coated papers lasting longer. Yes, they do last longer, but not significantly, and in all cases they look terrible. No one ever made a good resin coated photographic paper. All they ever made was very good advertising.)

Until recently fine art photographers working in B&W had no choice but to print on papers made from wood pulp, unless they were willing to manufacture their own papers. Then along came the inkjet printer and a tidal wave of new papers.

The first inkjet printers produced photographs that looked awful and had a life expectancy you could measure with a stopwatch. It’s a long and interesting story, but let’s just skip to the end…

A handful of modern inkjet printers, the ones fine art photographers are now using, use carbon based inks rather than the more common dye-based inks. Carbon based inks are very, very stable. In fact, it appears from the results of ongoing testing that the best of the carbon-based inks will significantly outlast the very best silver-gelatin photographs. We’re talking centuries. And in another five or six years this gap will grow even wider.

Inkjet printers are also capable of printing on a wide variety of papers, from the trashiest junk you can buy at the local office supply store to the finest hand made 100% cotton rag papers money can buy. Photographers like myself are ecstatic…

We can now produce an image, in B&W or color, that will last far longer than any conventional photographic silver-gelatin image. But not only can we produce a photograph that will last for centuries, we have the added benefit that modern inkjet printers and the software used to process and manipulate photographs are now capable of producing images of a visual quality that is strikingly superior to anything we could have produced previously with conventional analog silver-gelatin printing. We get substantially better image quality and infinitely more creative control over that image. This is why darkroom equipment is being listed for pennies on ebay, yet going unsold. Like many other photographers I have discovered that by using an inkjet printer I can for the first time in my career make exactly the photograph I envision without compromise of any kind.

However, these wonderful new images will nonetheless not be around for very long if handed off to Larry, Darryl and Darryl’s Anything-For-a-Buck, Frame Shop and Lawn Service.

The life expectancy of your new pigment on rag paper photograph is roughly equal to that of granite (a slight exaggeration born of enthusiasm). This is meaningless however if your framer immediately drops your new photograph into a vat of acid. And that is exactly what most framers are going to do with it.

One does not need a license to open a frame shop. One doesn’t even have to know how to spell frame. Unless you know what you are talking about and keep a wary eye on that framer he is going to drop your photograph into that vat of acid.

Paper, any paper, acts more like a fluid than a solid when it comes to chemical interaction. Think of two bottles of water, one with a blue dye in it, the other clear. Pour them together and in seconds the blue dye diffuses throughout, leaving a uniformly blue liquid. The clear water has now been contaminated with the blue dye.

Papers behave exactly like liquids only more slowly. This may have something to do with the high water content of paper. If you take two sheets of paper, one acid-free and the other acidic, sandwich them together and throw them in a drawer for a few years, both will yellow and crumble. Over time acid from the poor quality paper will diffuse into the sheet of paper that had no acid, ruining both. The higher the acid content, the faster the rate of diffusion and the more quickly the paper is ruined. High humidity, pollutants in the air, heat and direct sunlight all act as catalysts to hurry the process.

There is only one type of material on which your new photograph should be mounted and matted: 100% cotton rag museum board. This is the same kind of material, only thicker, on which the photograph itself is made (assuming your photographer is using the highest quality paper: ask before you buy). If you mix pure water with pure water, nothing diffuses anywhere.

Well, that was easy. Just tell your framer to use only 100% cotton rag museum board. Job done, time to go home.

Ah, if only it were that easy!

Years ago while going down the stairs of a small hotel in Peru one morning I ran across the concierge and asked him to please take a space heater up to my room as it was quite cold the night before. I asked him in Spanish, not realizing his command of the language was limited and that his native tongue was instead Quechua. He nodded in affirmation, but with a puzzled look on his face, and began to walk away. When questioned further he admitted that he did not understand the Spanish word for space heater and thought I had perhaps meant toilet. He was nonetheless eager to please and determined to accede to my wishes, no matter how inconvenient it might be to install a second toilet in my bathroom.

You would be amazed at the number of framers who think you mean toilet when you say museum board. And unless you watch their every move, toilet is what you are going to get. I should also mention that some methods of applying toilets are irreversible. More on this later.

You would also be amazed at the number of matte board manufacturers who know exactly what you mean when you say museum board but who hope you will be confused by the fact they have cleverly named a variety of toilets (wood pulp boards) in a blatant attempt to mislead. The problem lies in the fact that 100% cotton rag museum board is a description rather than a name. Manufacturers can call any board anything they wish and there is no one to call them liars. For example, it is perfectly legal to call a board 100% museum quality conservation board, which would of course be the finest quality board they make... out of wood!

Now there are a few; very, very few, high quality wood pulp matte boards being made that will last for quite a long time. That is to say, high quality and a long time in the wood pulp world. But if they were equal to or even close to real museum board, no one would be making real museum board any more. These high quality wood pulp conservation boards are a great second choice. But the difference in quality between first place and second place is still significant while the difference in price is very small indeed compared to what you lose. Most of the time the cheaper route is not worth it.

Matte board is made with varying numbers of layers or plies. Most common are two, four and eight plies. Four-ply is just about perfect for most photograph mounting and matting needs. Two-ply is usually too thin and eight-ply is overkill.

The plies are also the best way to tell the real thing from the junk. Look at the edge of the matte board your framer intends to use. Just about any matte board except museum board will have slightly differently colored and textured layers and possibly different thicknesses to each layer. You can also see the distinct layers rather easily with the naked eye. The board looks like what it is; a grayish sandwich of different materials. (Some manufacturers will go so far as to make one outside layer out of rag in order to make claims about museum quality.) Junk board also comes in a wide variety of colors (usually a thin paper veneer on one side) and textures. In appearance it often has more in common with wallpaper than high quality matte board. There are many, many more flavors of junk board than there are museum board. Generally your framer will have hundreds of junk board samples and only four or five samples of museum board. He will have half that many, two or three samples, of wood based conservation board. The junk board samples will be prominently displayed in several attractive trays designed specifically to hold them upright and show them off at their best. The museum board samples will be dirty, stuffed away in a corner somewhere, or used as coasters for the owner’s coffee cup. This is because he will sell a hundred brightly colored junk board mattes for every one museum board matte.

Museum board (and conservation board, unfortunately) looks like it is made of a uniform material throughout and on both surfaces and unless you have very sharp eyes, appears not to have layers. (If you use a magnifying glass you will see the layers clearly but they are all identical.) Museum board is never a different color on one side, though the surface texture may be slightly different from one side to the other. It simply looks like higher quality material, which of course, it is.

By examining the edge of the board you will be able to distinguish between real museum board and all the junk that is out there. Once you have seen the two side by side you won’t ever have a problem again. There is that much difference. However, conservation board is the one and only thing that looks, feels, tastes and smells almost exactly like museum board and will therefore slip past your radar.

To recap, museum board is made up entirely of real cotton fibers. The word rag is used because long ago it was common to make these materials out of bleached old cotton clothing rags (hence the rag pickers wandering the streets). High quality board made from wood pulp is commonly referred to as conservation board. It has had much of the acid removed from it but because it is made from wood pulp, which contains lignin, it will over time (short, not long), release new acids. This is why conservation board has chemical buffering agents added to it in an attempt to neutralize new acids as they are produced. But, just as you have to throw away the box of Arm & Hammer in your refrigerator from time to time, the buffer in conservation board also gets used up. (Hint: that box of Arm & Hammer contains one heck of a lot more buffering agent than paper manufacturers can stuff into a sheet of conservation board.)

If you ask your framer for museum rag and he hands you a piece of conservation board, you will not be able to tell the difference unless you have handled a lot of both. If however you ask to see the label on the package the board came in, this will tell you. Should you happen to pick a framer who is simply dishonest, getting conservation board instead of museum board is not a disaster for your photograph. As mentioned previously, conservation board is second best after museum board and you are likely to change the frame and matting before the conservation board can conceivably become a threat. But you will of course have been cheated.

Both museum and conservation boards come in a very narrow range of colors: white, several cream, ivory and light tan colors and perhaps black. No greens, blues, reds or anything else fancy. If you look at it and think party instead of library, you have the wrong stuff.

Museum board is also available buffered and non-buffered. The idea behind buffering conservation board is clear; conservation board is its own acid factory. The idea behind buffering museum board is not quite so clear. Chemicals in the atmosphere will be absorbed into museum board over time and have the potential to cause acid buildup where there was none before. I personally prefer non-buffered board. If atmospheric chemicals are getting into the museum board then they are also getting into the photograph and therefore, buffering the museum board won’t help the photograph. The buffering chemicals might also be doing damage we won’t learn about for years to come; kind of like dry mounting! We have not been using buffered boards long enough to be certain about their long term safety but we do know rag board is stable. We should perhaps stick with what we know to be reliable until we know something else that is reliable.

If you want to circumnavigate a lot of uncertainty, telephone your local museum and ask the conservator what framers in the area they know and trust. You must still insist on museum board and be on your guard but you have a much better chance of not hooking up with Larry, Curly and Moe, Framers to the Stars.

Assuming you have found a framer who does in fact have real rag board and is not interested in selling you a cheap substitute, you still cannot let down your guard. Just because he has the right matte board does not mean he knows what to do with it. (A certain art gallery in Atlanta Georgia ruined all of the prints I had consigned to them because they thought my mattes would last longer if they used double-faced Scotch tape on them. The tapestry of invective I wove for them no doubt still hangs in the air over that gallery but that did not salvage all my ruined prints. At the time I was faithfully following Ansel Adams’ advice to dry mount. Therefore, ruined mount board meant ruined print.) A photograph does have to be attached to the mount board in some way, or it will simply fall down into the bottom of the frame. Scotch tape is not the answer! Also, if the words dry mount so much as come out of your framer’s mouth, run for the door and don’t go back.

Before anyone knew any better, all photographs, well most of them anyway, were dry mounted. This involves sandwiching the photograph and mount board with a sheet of paper impregnated with shellac and inserting the whole thing into a big hot press. The shellac melts and seeps into both the photograph and mount board, making them one forever. Ansel Adams recommended this in all his photo books. Ansel was seldom wrong about anything concerning photography but he certainly made up for it in spades with this whopper!

We’ve learned a lot since then and we now know that any form of permanent attachment is a big mistake and about the only thing worse than dry mounting is Elmer’s Wood Glue and staples. Artwork must be easily removed from the mount for a wide variety of reasons not the least of which is replacing the mount should it become damaged. Nothing should be stuck to, glued to or in any way permanently or even semi-permanently attached to your photograph. The photograph must slip into and out of a pocket or pockets on the mount board. These pockets can be any of a number of things from corners and/or shelves made of clear polyester to hand-folded paper corners attached to the board with gummed white (actually off-white) cotton tape. For exceptionally large and heavy prints it is sometimes permissible to attach a couple of pieces of cotton tape to the back of the photograph, but only on the border, above where the actual image is located, and hung from the mounting board beyond the edge of the print. This breaks the rules listed previously but is a good compromise for some heavy prints and this special tape can be easily removed later. (Everything must be easily removable without risk to the image.)

The same gummed, cotton tape is generally also used to hinge the mount board and windowed matte together at the top so that all be handled easily as a single unit.

Ask your framer to see the box or boxes his mounting materials came in. You are looking for the word archival on the boxes. You are not looking for Joe’s Happyland Photo Album Corners. Those black corners grandma used in her photo album are especially prohibited.

Remember this simple rule: No one who makes archival materials ever forgets to put the word archival on the package, ever! If the word archival isn’t there, it is certain the material is not archival, no matter how insistent your framer may be to the contrary. There are however, manufacturers who make junk but slap the archival word on the box anyway. Use of the word does not require a license. There is not much you can do about these charlatans other than hope your framer knows better than to buy from them. It may be of some help for you to know that most of the blatant fraudsters in the past have been photo album manufacturers trying to salvage their sinking businesses and not manufacturers of art materials. Remember magic page photo albums? About the only thing worse you could do to your photographs was to throw them into the fireplace. The fireplace was only slightly faster. But the manufacturers of these awful photo albums started using the archival word when they realized the public was no longer buying their trash.

For a quick education in what museum quality materials look like, browse through the online catalog of the best-known supplier of archival materials in the country: www.lightimpressionsdirect.com. This will bring you up to speed in a big hurry. The correct materials for matting your photograph are purchased from companies like this one. Local mom and pop art supply houses generally don’t have archival materials, or have very limited supplies, usually at high prices. You can find these materials locally but you have to be careful you are actually getting what you think you are getting.

By the way, just in case you are tempted; the photograph must have an overmat (windowed matte board), which must of course also be made from 100% cotton rag museum board. It serves a greater purpose than just looking good and hiding the not always straight edges of the photograph or the mounting materials. Without an overmat, the surface of your photograph will be in contact with the glass of the frame. If the surface of your photograph touches the glass of your frame, sooner or later they will become one. Some of the world’s most skilled art restorers might be able to get your photograph off the glass for you without too much damage at a cost of… well, think second mortgage. Or you could just spring for the extra $20-$40 for a good overmat to begin with.

Now you have a sandwich of matte, overmat, mounting materials and oh, don’t forget to put the photograph in there at some point. Most framers like to add a backing board of some kind. This is simply to protect the back of the mounting board and add a little thickness to the sandwich so it fits better in the frame. Here’s a hint: plywood is not a good choice! If you think I’m joking then clearly you have never been to a garage sale. Lots and lots of framers have thrown a piece of plywood into a frame and thereby guaranteed the rapid demise of the art contained therein. If you see plywood in the frame shop, don’t assume he is remodeling. Get out!

Remember, these materials are like liquids. If you use a backing board containing acids or other destructive chemicals, these will diffuse into your mount board and eventually into your photograph. If you’re going to do that, you might as well dry mount the photograph directly to a piece of plywood.

The same companies that sell museum board also sell backing boards made of acceptable materials. These don’t have to be quite as critical as museum board. The one I use, and you’ll find it on the same web site mentioned previously so you’ll know what it looks like, is simply a fancy kind of cardboard. It has been treated to remove acid and buffered to neutralize new acids. It is colored blue to more easily distinguish it from garden-variety cardboard. The lignin in this backing board can produce acid and migrate through the mount board into the photograph, but this is a process that will take many, many years. The photograph will be reframed, or at least the mount board replaced, before this can happen. You may find something else you like better. Heck, I may find something I like better! Some people just use another piece of museum board. Some use nothing.

Just remember this basic rule of thumb: bad stuff seeps out of bad materials into good materials. Goodness does not seep out of good materials into bad materials. Pick your backing board accordingly.

One major choice remains and that is the frame. If you choose to go with an aluminum or plastic frame, you’re done. These materials are not known to be destructive.

If however you choose a wooden frame then you have to do a little more. The wood contains acids and lignins in very high quantities. No one deacidifies or buffers wooden frames. These acids will leach directly into the backing board, the mounting board and the overmat because they are all in direct contact with the wood. Eventually, contaminants will make it all the way to the photograph. Several companies make thin plastic barriers specifically for this problem. They slip between the frame and the edges of the art sandwich to keep them apart. If you don’t use these barriers you will have to replace your backing, mount and matte boards every couple of years. You will see the yellow discoloration creep through the matte board, closer and closer to the photograph. But remember, yellowing only occurs where the acid has already existed for a long time. If you can see two inches of yellowing, you probably have six to eight inches of acid migration.

Lastly, whichever type of frame you happen to choose, it should be sealed. The reason for this is that insects live in multiple dimensions of space and time. No matter how tightly sandwiched a frame might be, even the fattest of insects can always pop into a parallel universe and then pop back into this one, inside your frame! No human contortionist has anything on insects. If your frame is not sealed, they will get in. And often, they will miraculously get in anyway. (I firmly believe that if you place a solid block of acrylic on a table and wait long enough, eventually a huge cockroach will magically appear in the middle of it. This can be significantly hurried along by first framing the block of acrylic.)

Fortunately, most framers, even the worst ones, are sticklers for sealing frames. Probably because it is so easy to do, looks so complete, and also hides whatever they may have screwed up on the inside. They simply glue a piece of butcher paper, or similar, over the entire back of the frame. At this point the quality of materials is irrelevant as neither the paper or the glue will be in direct contact with the print sandwich. They can therefore be made of nuclear waste and not damage the photograph. However, do not ignore this advice: tell your framer that you do not want him to seal the frame until you come to pick it up. I am not kidding about framers using this ruse to hide their mistakes. It is very common. If despite your request, he seals the frame before you arrive, rip it open. Butcher paper is not sacred and can be replaced in seconds.

Once your photograph is properly framed you only have to remember what you already know: all potential destructive processes a photograph may experience are chemical processes and therefore are affected by the same things that affect any other chemical process. Heat, sunlight, humidity, and atmospheric contaminants will speed up deterioration. Therefore, do not hang your photograph in the kitchen, bathroom or garage. Do not hang it where it will be in direct sunlight every day. Don’t store it in the oven or next to the furnace. Don’t live next to a chemical processing plant and never, ever go anywhere near Florida. Of course, that last is good advice on so many other levels!

One last thing I nearly forgot. Not all glass is the same, despite what the ignoramus I met years ago in a Salt Lake City glass shop had to say.

Window glass is green, very, very green. Look at a piece from the edge. Do not use it for framing. Especially do not use it for framing B&W photographs. Lots and lots of framers use window glass. Some do so because it is cheaper and they know that most people cannot see the difference. Others do so because they are just as ignorant as that guy in Salt Lake City. Have your framer lay a piece of the glass he plans to use over half of your matted photograph (don’t let the edge of the glass touch the surface of the photograph or it will be damaged). Looking at the photograph, half with glass over it and half without, the green color will reach right out and slap you in the face. I am unaware of any glass that does not have at least a slight greenish tinge, but picture frame glass is far less green than window glass. If in doubt, take a piece of scrap window glass with you to the frame shop for comparison.

Even more than color, B&W photographs in particular are compromised by being covered with green glass. This is because almost all fine art B&W photographs are toned, that is, intentionally given a subtle color cast. Photographers work very hard at getting this subtle color just exactly right and bristle at the thought of some framer turning it green, especially since green has always been the color B&W photographers have struggled to get rid of through toning. In one way or another this toning also gives more vibrancy and depth to the photograph. So poor quality glass does more damage than just change the color of the image. It often hides some of the subtle qualities that made you want to own the photograph in the first place.

If like me, you just can’t stand that greenish tinge, you may want to consider using plexiglass or a similar plastic instead of glass. Plastics scratch easily and are prone to producing static electricity, which attracts dust, but there is no color tinge and plastic weighs a great deal less than glass. I think photographs look much better under plexiglass and have switched over completely. It also doesn’t easily break like glass!

It is a widely held view that a frame should complement a painting and add to its presentation. Not so with a photograph. When it comes to a photograph, the job of a frame is to protect and conserve the photograph but otherwise disappear into the background, letting the photograph exist unaided. Anything else actually detracts from the image.

dk

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Ban the Bed Sheets
Size Matters

© 2009 David Kachel

Have you ever had this experience?...

You decide to attend an outdoor art fair and after parking your car you begin to walk toward the displays, at once noticing from a distance what appear to be sails billowing gently in the breeze, or perhaps it is laundry hung out to dry in the warm summer air. You see what you imagine must be hundreds of them dominating the scene and immediately wonder if you have mistakenly driven to a gathering of sailing enthusiasts or perhaps an exhibit by a group of laundry detergent manufacturers demonstrating their new whiter whites and brighter brights. Then you realize that, noÉ

Those are photographs!

The trend over the last few decades has been for photographers in every specialty but particularly in landscape and fine art photography, to make photographs as large as they possibly can, approximating the size of bed sheets. (Allow me a little fun with what is after all, only very slight hyperbole.)

Photographers have always had a tendency to be just a bit confused and uncertain about what photography is, how it should be presented, where it is going and how it fits into a larger view of the world. They are especially prone to be blown by the prevailing winds, more so when said winds promise long-sought rewards. Like food.

Even Saint Ansel was not immune to this as attested by the infamous coffee can affair. I admit to being a long-time, recovering Ansel Adams clone. I own about ten books with AnselÕs name on them and have been to see several shows of his work. I have even written quite a few magazine articles on the Zone System and on techniques I invented primarily, though not exclusively, for Zone System use. But something has significantly bothered me about Ansel AdamsÕ work since the first time I saw it face-to-face and it has taken me years to finally put my finger on it.

Since viewing that first Ansel Adams show, I have encountered this uneasy feeling over and over again when seeing original works by many other photographers. In fact, the problem is completely undetectable unless you are looking at original prints, or posters and really has nothing to do with the talent or skill of the photographer or the artistic merit of the work. And the problem did, to an extent, start with Ansel.

It has to do with the inherent nature of a photograph and how we relate to it. I have often stated that an artist in whatever medium is not taking full advantage of that medium unless he/she is making the most of that mediumÕs unique characteristics. A pianist who insists on trying to make his piano sound like a tuba has lost his way. He may by some strange quirk succeed, but he will have accomplished little of lasting significance. The inherent characteristics of a piano are not and never will be, tuba-like.

The overriding unique characteristic of a photograph is its illusion of reality. Though the public may still buy into the quaint idea that a photograph actually represents reality, photographers know just how far removed is even the most literal photograph, from what was in front of the camera. A photograph is an illusion deftly abstracted from the real world and one that is so nearly perfect that it fools very nearly all of the people, all of the time. (None of this is likely to come as news to any photographer.)

But the photograph has another characteristic that, while not unique, plays a vital supporting role in the illusion of reality and in making a photograph a photograph. That characteristic is one of intimacy and it makes or breaks an individual print.

Intimacy is a vital characteristic of a photograph and it is that aspect of the photograph and the way in which it supports the illusion of reality that Ansel Adams sometimes violated by giving in to the demands of gallery owners that he make larger prints so those galleries could sell them for more money.

Even if others made large prints first or at the same time, because Ansel had such a disproportionate influence on several generations of photographers, huge photographs now blanket the world due almost exclusively to the initial influence of Adams and overly profit-oriented gallery owners.

The problem is size. Photographs, especially landscape photographs, all too often are printed too large, robbing the photograph of its intimacy and therefore at the same time, of at least some of its illusion of reality.

Please understand that I am not talking about size as it relates to viewing distance, as most photographers would tend to think. A passport size photograph still should not be viewed from twenty feet. Nor should a mural be enjoyed from six inches. I am talking about size only as it relates to intimacy and photographyÕs illusion of reality.

The basic nature of a photograph is that it is a small, fragile, tactile, finely detailed and intimate object.

For the first several decades of photography all photographs were small and in fact an 8x10 was generally the largest anyone saw because most photographs were contact prints; the same size as the negative. The vast majority of photographs were much, much smaller than 8x10. A photograph was something delicate that you held in your hands and carefully examined in every detail. In fact, the earliest photographs were often encased in elegant enclosures or ornate albums. They were unique and special objects that people treasured and enjoyed. And because the technology of the time forced most photographs to remain small, a lack of intimacy was seldom a problem.

Please take careful note that I am not claiming photographs should be small just because they used to be small. In fact, I am not saying that photographs should necessarily be small at all. I am saying that photographs should be intimate because that is one of a photographÕs most important characteristics and the bigger the photograph, the less likely it is to retain this quality of intimacy. Photographs are by nature, intimate objects. The fact they started out small was just a happy coincidence that allowed us to experience this intimacy from the beginning.

Almost everyoneÕs earliest experiences with photographs have to do with small, one-person-at-a-time interactions, passing photographs around the dining room table or looking at the pages in a family album. The illusion of reality happens on a subconscious level, but so does the intimacy. We naturally interact with a photograph in that way without realizing it consciously and at those kinds of distances and sizes, intimacy canÕt be avoided.

People who take up more than a casual interest in photography invariably end up purchasing a number of books of photographs. This is because the work of many if not most photographers is both financially out of reach, and not offered in a collectible form (more on this in my upcoming monograph, Photo-Secession II). Books of photographs involve small images held in the lap. This is one of the best and most rewarding experiences of photographs and one we all fall into naturally, again without giving conscious thought to the underlying illusion of reality and experience of intimacy.

Just about everyone who has had the above experiences has also had this one: You walk into someoneÕs living room for the first time and on the wall you see a gigantic, California-King size, hideous, gaudy, tasteless, oversaturated color family photo the photographer of which should probably be in prison (if there is any justice in the world). It is the Borat of photographic portraits. You try to pretend you donÕt notice it, but your eyes are drawn to it like a gory accident on the side of the road. Unfortunately, anyone who owns one of these photographs is also proud of it and eagerly asks for your opinion (mostly after noticing your caught-in-the-headlights, dumbfounded expression).

Forget for the moment the plaid golf pants, high-rise hairdo, children dressed in funeral garb, perplexed family pet and utter lack of any semblance of photographic talent. Does that photograph not also lack intimacy? Not that youÕd want that experience with such a photograph, but that is not the point. Even if they werenÕt the Technicolor Addams family and the photographer actually had talent, this photograph would still not feel right. This is because the quality of intimacy is missing. The photographer enlarged it out of existence, and what you are feeling at that moment is not unlike that recurring dream weÕve all had of suddenly realizing we are in public, wearing no clothes.

HereÕs something with which we can all identify, but with a twist I bet you never imaginedÉ

Just about every photographer who has ever had photographs in a show of one kind or another has made the same complaint, or at least heard it, about some of the attendees at the show: ÒHe couldnÕt just stand there at a normal distance to view my work. He had to walk up to it and press his nose against the glass as if thatÕs the way to look at a photograph.Ó

Everyone makes the same assumption when this happensÉ the owner of the greasy nose print must be another photographer being overly and annoyingly critical of the technical quality of your work.

In many cases that conclusion is undoubtedly correct. After all, photographers are naturally attracted to photography exhibits and we all would like to think our technical skills are superior. But I submit there is something more going on here, even when the fellow with the greasy nose is in fact an overly critical photographer.

What is going on is intimacy; or more precisely, the frustrated attempt to achieve it, and by extension, the desire to heighten that illusion of reality mentioned earlier. Perhaps the viewer is pressing his nose against the glass in an attempt to achieve an experience of intimacy that is not possible at the correct viewing distance for that particular print size and which experience indeed may not be possible at any distance with that image, at that size. This by inference means that there is no correct viewing distance for that image, at that print size. If the viewer must step back to take in the whole print but step forward for detail and the experience of intimacy, the print cannot be enjoyed at any distance because we expect and seek out both detail and intimacy while at the same time wanting to take in the image as a whole.

To be clear, I agree with the widely held premise that photographs should generally be viewed at a roughly specific distance based on size alone. Closer for small prints, further away for larger prints. However, this only tells us where to stand based on the size of the print but not its content. Neither does it tell us what size to make the print in the first place.

I am not suggesting there is a formula for print size; portraits should be 8x10s and landscapes should be 16x20s. No. What I am suggesting is that for every image there is a size or a short range of sizes which best allows the viewer to interact with that photograph under optimal conditions. A size at which the illusion of reality, detail, potential for intimacy and viewing distance all converge for the best possible experience. Seldom is the best possible experience of a photograph the same as the experience one gets with a road map fully unfolded in the lap or with the smallest line of an eye chart on the other side of the room.

I am also suggesting that this optimal size or group of sizes is entirely independent of the floor space or ceiling height in a gallery or museum. If an image works best as an 8x10 this fact is true whether the photograph is in the viewerÕs lap or hanging on the wall of the largest gallery in the Louvre. Just because your photograph looks like a postage stamp on the Great Wall of China, does not necessarily mean you made it too small. It is more likely they made the wall too big.

If you doubt these ideas then think for a moment of Edward WestonÕs Pepper # 30. Now I am fairly certain you have never experienced a print of this image larger than 8x10. I am also fairly certain you are a pretty cold fish of a photographer if you have never once gotten lost in this photograph. Think of your most enjoyable experience of that photograph but then imagine it enlarged to 30x40 inches hanging on the wall at the conventionally prescribed proper viewing distance for a print that large. Did the produce department at the grocery store or some other nightmarish connection just pop into your head? Did the intimate experience of the photograph and the illusion of reality disintegrate with the increase in size?

Fortunately for both of us, this is one of those subjects where you donÕt really have to decide whether or not I am right based on the logic of my arguments because you can so very easily test it for yourself. IÕm guessing that for many photographers, all I have done is shine a light on observations you have already made, but simply hadnÕt fully analyzed. Now that you have this idea that the best experience of a photograph involves the convergence of four factors: detail, the illusion of reality, size and the experience of intimacy, you will start looking for this convergence. ItÕs not at all hard to determine once you start consciously looking for it.

The natural tendency for photographers, in the absence of outside influence, is to make smaller prints. The trend to larger prints is due mostly to the desire on the part of galleries to make more money (you donÕt make a lot on a 5x7) and the previously mentioned influence of Ansel Adams who was in turn influenced by the aforementioned galleries.

The larger a photograph becomes the more quickly it ceases to be photographic art with all the best qualities of a photograph and starts to turn into decorative wallpaper. If we wanted to create wallpaper most of us would probably have picked some medium other than photography.

What size is the right size? I hesitate to discuss this at all because we are talking about a convergence of factors and subjective opinion. There is no formulaic approach. It depends on the photograph. An image with a lot of tiny detail that amounts to many separate small ÒsubjectsÓ, such as a class photograph for example, might be quite large because there is so much to see and it really amounts to many small photographs contained in one. The viewerÕs intimate relationship with it may well legitimately take place at the nose-to-the-glass viewing distance previously mentioned. A different photograph containing a lot of detail but not consisting of numerous objects perceived as separate subjects might best be viewed much smaller. The photographer must decide for every image individually. All I can say is that it becomes very easy once you know what you are looking for and why. It is far simpler to do than to explain.

Back to bed sheetsÉ A photograph should be no larger than the maximum size that still allows the viewer to be comfortable and intimate with it and experience the illusion of reality, at the same distance. I believe that size for most photographs will very rarely be larger than 16x20 and seldom that big. I invite the reader to judge for yourself but I emphatically claim that currently popular photographs measured not in inches but in Twin, Full, Queen and King, are absolutely too large and positively destroy that all-important intimacy factor.

SOME RANDOM RELATED THOUGHTS

Why does an 8x10 photograph cost substantially less money than a larger print? Is it somehow less of an image? Aside from the somewhat higher materials and handling costs, isnÕt it the same? Most photographs work best at a specific size. If an image works best as an 8x10, then obviously a 16x20 would be worth less, not more! And more important still, if the photograph is large enough that it has been robbed of itÕs intimacy, hasnÕt its value actually been destroyed completely?

Another proof of the point: Why do photographs become less contrasty and more delicate as they get smaller? Why do they get more harsh as they get larger? In the large photograph the intimacy is lost and some effort has to be made to substitute for it. This substitute, though never successful is often contrast.

Another thing that tends to interfere with this feeling of intimacy is the glass in the frame and to a lesser extent, the frame itself. The glass very likely is another contributing factor to the nose-pressed-against-the-glass phenomenon in that the glass steals intimacy that the viewer attempts to regain with greater proximity. The glass robs the print of its tactility and often the visual impact of the surface texture of the paper. It also introduces reflections that further push the viewer away from interaction and finally, glass is green! This often destroys the subtle tonal color the photographer worked so hard to get exactly right.

Fine detail needs a small print, while prints with broad tones and little fine detail can often be larger.