# The Frame: What Is In and What Is Out Photography I · Photographic Language and the Taking of the Image · https://tryals.app/learn/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out ## The Cut Before the Picture A painter adds. A photographer can only **choose an edge**. Every photograph makes two statements: what is included, and what is excluded. * **dins de camp**: inside the frame, in the field of view. * **fora de camp**: outside the frame. Off-frame space still shapes the image. Noël Burch (*Theory of Film Practice*, 1969) divided it into **six segments**: * Four spaces beyond the four edges * One space behind the camera * One space behind the set or horizon Photography inherits all six. ### Inherited Proportions and Cropping Standard 35 mm still film measures 24 × 36 mm. It gives an area of **864 square millimetres**. Cropping it to a 24 × 24 square leaves **576** square millimetres. You discard one-third of the negative and its resolution. Many consumer viewfinders showed only **92 to 95 per cent** of the captured scene. Elements outside your viewfinder still reached the film. > **Common pitfall:** treating framing and cropping as identical. Framing selects what the lens gathers. Cropping merely discards captured data, degrading your final Picture quality. ## Practice questions 10 of this lesson's 14 practice questions, with answers. The full set is in the app. ### 1. Two photographers stand in the same place with the same lens at a demonstration. One frames so that the line of police is just outside the right edge; the other includes it. Why is that a claim about the event rather than a matter of taste? A. A wider frame captures a broader angle, automatically guaranteeing an objective record. B. The edge decides what is present; excluding police makes the crowd the whole situation. C. Excluding the police loses usable negative area, leaving an incomplete technical record. D. Wider framing records distinct lighting conditions, creating a separate optical truth. **Answer:** B. The edge decides what is present; excluding police makes the crowd the whole situation. **Why:** Because the edge fixes the limit of the evidence. A viewer of the tighter frame cannot know the police are there, so the picture asserts a crowd without a confrontation. Neither frame lies about the light, and both are complete photographs, which is exactly why the choice of edge is an editorial act rather than a preference. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/two-photographers-stand-in-the-same-place-with-the-same-lens-at-a ### 2. Sort each element by its relation to the frame. **Answer:** - Inside the frame: Photographer reflected in a shop window, Far room wall visible through a doorway - Outside the frame but signalled inside it: Sitter looking past the right-hand edge, Hand reaching in from above the top edge - Outside the frame and unsignalled: Traffic behind camera leaving no trace **Why:** The middle category is the useful one and the one beginners overlook. A shadow, a gaze or an intruding hand recruits the viewer into building what is not there, which is why photographs that use it feel larger than their edges. The last category is what "excluded" really means: no trace, no inference, no picture. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/sort-each-element-by-its-relation-to-the-frame ### 3. Cropping a full 35 mm frame to a square discards one third of the negative area. **Answer:** True **Why:** **True.** 24 × 36 = 864 square millimetres; 24 × 24 = 576, which is exactly two thirds of it. The third that goes takes resolution and enlargement quality with it, which is why a square picture is better shot on a square format than rescued from a rectangle. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/cropping-a-full-35-mm-frame-to-a-square-discards-one-third-of-the ### 4. Complete the vocabulary of the frame. **Answer:** The Catalan term for what lies inside the frame is dins de camp, and for what lies beyond it, fora de **camp**. Burch divided that outside space into **six** segments. The ratio of the standard 35 mm frame is **3:2**, and the photographer who printed the full frame with its black **rebate** showing, to assert that the framing had been decided at the moment of exposure, was Cartier-Bresson. **Why:** The last blank is an argument disguised as a printing habit. Showing the rebate proves that nothing was cropped, so the black border is a signature on the claim that the four edges were chosen in front of the subject rather than recovered afterwards on the baseboard. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/complete-the-vocabulary-of-the-frame ### 5. Which of these are true of the frame as an act of exclusion? A. Burch counted a segment of off-frame space behind the camera itself B. Excluding an element removes it from the viewer's reasoning entirely C. A doorway or window activates the segment behind the scenery D. What is excluded can still act on the picture through shadows, gazes and intrusions **Answer:** A. Burch counted a segment of off-frame space behind the camera itself; C. A doorway or window activates the segment behind the scenery; D. What is excluded can still act on the picture through shadows, gazes and intrusions **Why:** The fourth is the beginner's assumption and it is wrong: exclusion is only complete when nothing inside the frame points outward. Once a shadow, a gaze or a doorway is present, the viewer builds the missing space and the picture is larger than its edges. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/which-of-these-are-true-of-the-frame-as-an-act-of-exclusion ### 6. A painter builds an image by addition, whereas a photographer operates strictly through exclusion. What follows from this distinction when considering what lies beyond the camera's viewfinder? A. Off-frame elements actively structure meaning despite being excluded B. The unrecorded environment loses its capacity to affect the viewer C. Exclusion only occurs after the exposure through selective cropping D. Everything excluded from view is erased from the photographic context **Answer:** A. Off-frame elements actively structure meaning despite being excluded **Why:** Exclusion is an active compositional choice that charges off-screen space (*fora de camp*) with meaning rather than eliminating it. Cropping is merely a post-capture reduction of resolution, not the initial optical selection made at the moment of taking. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/a-painter-builds-an-image-by-addition-whereas-a-photographer ### 7. Match each term to what it names. **Answer:** - Enquadrament → The decision about where the four edges fall - Fora de camp → Space beyond the edges that the picture nonetheless implies - Aspect ratio → The proportion of the frame's width to its height - Viewfinder coverage → The share of the recorded image the photographer actually saw **Why:** Keeping these four apart prevents most of the confusion in this part of the syllabus. Framing is a decision, off-frame space is a consequence of it, aspect ratio is a constraint on it that the format imposes, and coverage is the gap between the decision and the result. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/match-each-term-to-what-it-names ### 8. Arrange these acts of exclusion in the order they occur in the making of a picture. **Answer:** 1. Choosing the camera, and with it the aspect ratio of every frame 2. Choosing where to stand 3. Choosing the focal length, and with it how much of the view fits 4. Releasing the shutter, which excludes every other instant 5. Cropping in the enlarger or on screen **Why:** Only the last one is reversible in the sense of being deferrable, and it is also the only one that costs quality. Everything above it is decided in front of the subject, which is why photographers argue about cropping in a way they never argue about aspect ratio. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/arrange-these-acts-of-exclusion-in-the-order-they-occur-in-the-making ### 9. A typical non-professional single-lens reflex viewfinder showed less of the frame than actually reached the film. Roughly what percentage did it show? **Answer:** 93 (within ±4) **Why:** About **93 per cent**, with most bodies falling between 92 and 95. The missing sliver runs all the way round the edge, so the surprise it delivers is always at the border of the negative, the elbow, the sign, the parked van that nobody saw through the finder. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/a-typical-non-professional-single-lens-reflex-viewfinder-showed-less ### 10. Burch divided off-frame space into four segments, one beyond each edge of the frame. **Answer:** False **Why:** **False**: there are **six**. Beyond the four edges, yes, but also behind the camera and behind the set or the scenery. The last is the one a doorway, a mirror or an open window puts to work, and leaving it out of the count is how students end up thinking off-frame space is only about margins. Page: https://tryals.app/practice/photography-i/the-frame-what-is-in-and-what-is-out/burch-divided-off-frame-space-into-four-segments-one-beyond-each