The Limitations of the Frame

A gentle act of discrimination

The defining act of photography is framing.

I think of it as a gentle act of discrimination.

Two main questions emerge during the process:
What do I leave in?
What do I leave out?

These are often mistaken as a division between what’s important and what’s not. I fall into that trap too (very often).

But what’s inside and outside the frame are equally important.

A phrase from science captures this perfectly:
“Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

Just because we don’t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

It is there!… structuring meaning, creating tension.

Framing is an act of power.
A deliberate manipulation of perception. A sharp tool.

Cutting between:
The visible vs. the invisible
The said vs. the unsaid

Lately, I’ve been shooting a lot of black and white. It feels so freeing!

Like framing, it strips things down, allowing me to focus more deeply on meaning — perhaps allowing me to get closer to the “truth” of things.

I’m after the minimum required to say something with a photograph.

A lot of the following coming…
Black and white. Tighter frames.
Less, but sharper.

An attempt to say more with less.
To express something with the fewest possible words.

There’s also a kind of fatigue in this process — something I feel mirrored in Pablo Neruda’s poem Walking Around:

It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.

A rejection of excess.
Of noise.
Of everything that feels inevitable.

I want to frame ruthlessly, almost dictatorially!

To search for a minimal form of expression that provokes more questions than answers.

To work on that edge where simplicity and depth meet, embracing each other in an almost expressionist kiss.

As my friend and photography editing mentor, David Salcedo, says:
“Photography is a bitch of a language.” One misplaced image has the potential to disrupt an entire discourse.

So let’s see how this experiment goes, shall we?

---

Maybe the frame is not a limitation, but a code. A way of speaking through omission as much as inclusion.

In the end, every photograph becomes a negotiation between what is shown and what is hidden, clarity and ambiguity.

Control and surrender…

The more I crop, the more I realise that meaning doesn’t disappear, but just concentrates.

What is left outside the frame doesn’t vanish. It presses against it. It defines it.

And perhaps that’s the real tension I’m after:

Not to explain, but to suggest.

To leave just enough…
for the image to continue beyond itself, talking freely, unattended.

---

If you appreciate what I create and would like to support it, consider subscribing and sharing it.

Your support truly means a lot and keeps this journey alive. THANK YOU!