To Frame or Not To Frame

DumfriesDik

DumfriesDik

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Richard Toulson
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I have just 'found' that you can have a frame or boarder around your photo, Whilst it makes for a change, I wonder what you think of it? For Flickr, it seems to work nicely, but what about club competitions and your portfolio, would you add a frame to this?

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I like frames :)
 
If a photo is actually going in a real frame, then I like black with a white mount.

Flickr I just post as it is without any frame or border. For Instagram, I always add a white canvas to then crop to a square frame overall for posting multiple images together that might contain both vertical and horizontal.
 
I'd call that a border - a frame to me is something physical - but that's language & terminology for you.

And the issue is more than border / borderless - there's the matter of exactly what form the border takes, which is equally relevant.

A border can so easily be seen as an affectation. Caution needed!

Particularly, the black line in this case actually competes with the image for attention, which can't be good. An image should take precedence, always, since it's the essence & whole point of the escapade!
 
I generally prefer photos on websites presented without borders or shadows, though there may occasionally be exceptions. When I mount and frame pictures then the border will either be neutral (white/light cream) or pick up a colour from the image.

The black border used here does at least somewhat echo the tones in the image, but the border on the Tree image overpowers the image. In both cases, the pictures look to be slightly too tightly cropped, and I suspect the border is eating into the needed extra space within the picture itself instead of being added onto the outside.
 
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There's such a range of possibilities & there's not really a simple polarisation into right / wrong.

To reference the parallel circumstance of using mount card when framing, my normal taste is for a quiet 'off' white for colour images, & a brighter white for mono.

Taste is so variable. No doubt to some, photographs are just decor ...

For borders applied in software, whether for screen or print, I suspect from what I've seen that there's a great range of effects available including faux brushed emulsion and fake sprocket perforations ...

Mono images often look good with a tight black line defining the image edge inside a broader white border - indeed this is something of a classic look.
 
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