NZDavid Posted November 12, 2010 Share #41 Posted November 12, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) I am not sure if preference for rectangular pictures is merely because of custom, as claimed, or if indeed aesthetics can be explained by mathematics alone -- or if one might as well try to extract sunbeams from cucumbers! Artists have, over the centuries, experimented with round pictures. But they have not caught on. Perhaps this is due to the fact that composition is tricky. Or perhaps it's because frames or sticky corners for mounting in an album are a damn sight trickier again. Below, a couple of Renaissance painters' efforts, called "tondos". First up, Domenico Veneziano, The Adoration of the Magi, diameter 84cm. Next, Raphael, Alba Madonna, diameter 94.5cm. I think Raffa's is the simpler composition, but both use a triangular pattern to lead the eye, much like Leonardo. [please forgive low light quick copies.] Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here… Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! Link to post Share on other sites Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members! ' data-webShareUrl='https://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/136392-why-not-round-photos/?do=findComment&comment=1500009'>More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted November 12, 2010 Posted November 12, 2010 Hi NZDavid, Take a look here Why not round photo's?. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
250swb Posted November 12, 2010 Share #42 Posted November 12, 2010 Below, a couple of Renaissance painters' efforts, called "tondos". First up, Domenico Veneziano, The Adoration of the Magi, diameter 84cm. Next, Raphael, Alba Madonna, diameter 94.5cm. I think Raffa's is the simpler Yes that Raphael is a nice 'effort', mark my words he'll do well one day. The reason we don't see so many round photographs nowadays is simple. In the first years of photography many photographers were trying to fit their images into the hierarchy of the art establishment. Actually worse than that, they were trying to give it some instant historical patina by allying it with earlier art forms, where frame shapes were often dictated by buildings and architectural aesthetics. But the good thing was that photography had the freedom to do that, or anything else, it was a blank canvas (paper) and it could go anywhere and do anything. There were no rules that couldn't be made up or thrown down and banished. So you had an instant battle between 'artists' with brushes and chisels and rules, and photographers with their scary ahistorical medium who were searching for acceptance. It wasn't going to happen. Another hundred years had to pass before photography became art in a general sense. But in that time a bad thing happened. Photographers brow beaten into submission by clubs, influential amateurs, wannabe painters, and Salon's started to make their own rules so they had a common ground to talk on. This was the end of photography's freedom. Now we have all the pomposity of an establishment clique but with a mass movement brought about by the commercial availability of cameras. Every photographer can be an artist even for a day, if they follow the rules. Painting-by-numbers isn't any worse. So it was photographers themselves who threw the baby out with the bathwater, and insisted the frame be mainly select versions of a rectangle simply because they needed a way to categorise and organise what they were seeing. The irony is that photography as a mass medium in a free thinking world is dictated by all the principles of state socialism, with rules to make you conform. The nearest we now have to the round frame, in spirit if not roundness, are the few artists using photography to poke at this from the inside out, and 'Lomographers' who infuriate traditionalists by being nearer to venture capitalism in their spirit and acts. So its time to resurrect the round frame (or remove some rules) but somebody else can go first....... Steve Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pierovitch Posted November 12, 2010 Share #43 Posted November 12, 2010 Eyes and retinas are round. Silicon wafers are round so you could fill a full wafer with pixels. Image circles are round so you use the maximum image forming area of a lens. Cropping would be very flexible. prints would hang nicely between the portholes on your yacht. Spherical projection screens immersive field of vision ....... Just doesn't have that Leica feel to it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
elansprint72 Posted November 12, 2010 Share #44 Posted November 12, 2010 Just in case there is anyone who does not know it: the Golden Mean (or Golden Ratio) defines the division of a length into to smaller parts such that the whole :: the larger section = the larger section :: the smaller section. This is the expression which gives a magnitude to that ratio: The classical 35mm with its 36mmx24mm image area has a ratio of 3:2 or 1.5:1 or just 1.500. This is not particularly close to 1.6180 as such things go. Hence, the classical Leica image format is held to be ugly by many who actually care for such things. The Golden Ratio applies not obny to oblongs but to ovals as well. In that case you use the lengths of the shorter and the longer axis and the sum of those lengths. If you want to use the largest part of the image provided by a lens, you'd of course use a square format. However, you would use a square with the same diagonal as the 24x36 mm image, not an square image with a side of 36mm. Yes, that explains exactly why photographs are not circular. Thank you so much for a useful contribution. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
elansprint72 Posted November 12, 2010 Share #45 Posted November 12, 2010 Hi Andy, it looks as if we have different understandings of "B" and "C" paper sizes. The ISO sizes B0, B1... and C0, C1... alll have the exactly same aspect ratio as the A series, 1.414:1. B0 is 1000mm x 1414mm, B1 is 707mm x 500mm and so on. So B5 is midway between A4 and A5 and the same shape as either. The C series is normally only used for envelopes. It's defined in terms of the A and B series but in practice a Cn envelope takes An paper flat, An-1 paper folded once or An-2 folded twice. I was an early-adopter of ISO paper sizes, when they were still hard to get in the UK; simple reason was that they were the closest aspect ratio to a full 35mm frame. When you are churning out 50 A4 prints in a session, the less paper-slicing the better. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted November 12, 2010 Share #46 Posted November 12, 2010 Yes, that explains exactly why photographs are not circular. Thank you so much for a useful contribution. I was an early-adopter of ISO paper sizes, when they were still hard to get in the UK; simple reason was that they were the closest aspect ratio to a full 35mm frame. When you are churning out 50 A4 prints in a session, the less paper-slicing the better. I see. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicoleica Posted November 12, 2010 Share #47 Posted November 12, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) I see. Pop, are you working your way through the entire works of H.G. Wells? Last month 'Tono-Bungay', now 'The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth'. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted November 12, 2010 Share #48 Posted November 12, 2010 Pop, are you working your way through the entire works of H.G. Wells? Last month 'Tono-Bungay', now 'The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth'. Yes, I am, after a fashion. I have read some of it some thirty years ago. Now I make those books earn their keep and I'm running through them again. You really are observant. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
elansprint72 Posted November 12, 2010 Share #49 Posted November 12, 2010 I see. "Cynicism is humor in ill health". Who said that? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted November 12, 2010 Share #50 Posted November 12, 2010 "Cynicism is humor in ill health". Who said that? You did. Otherwise, dunno. Benny Hill, perhaps? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicoleica Posted November 12, 2010 Share #51 Posted November 12, 2010 "Cynicism is humor in ill health". Who said that? The same person who said that "You have learned something. That always feels at first as if you had lost something." Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted November 12, 2010 Share #52 Posted November 12, 2010 Circularity of images. Aspect ratios of image formats. Please. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
NZDavid Posted November 13, 2010 Share #53 Posted November 13, 2010 Or religion. From mathematics to metaphysics. Life in the round. In Christianity, rose windows, halos, domes. The Celtic Cross. In Buddhism, the Yin Yang symbol. In Sufism, the mystic quest, the elements... In Hinduism, the Mandala... The circle of life... So what kind of camera would God use? Circles are everywhere. But in art and building and elsewhere we forego circles and opt for rectangles. Ah, but at least the Leica M3 viewfinder image has rounded corners. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chistoso Posted November 13, 2010 Share #54 Posted November 13, 2010 So what kind of camera would God use? And how would it clean the sensor? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted November 13, 2010 Share #55 Posted November 13, 2010 Circles are everywhere. But in art and building and elsewhere we forego circles and opt for rectangles. Where I live, there are still a lot of round barns. Some of stone! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marquinius Posted April 17, 2011 Share #56 Posted April 17, 2011 Y/know what I like about this thread? I am actually learning something in a painless and interesting way. Regards, Bill You and me both Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pico Posted April 17, 2011 Share #57 Posted April 17, 2011 Henry Bosse made oval photographic prints. The picture above is from our waterfront which has changed since, of course. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Washington Posted April 18, 2011 Share #58 Posted April 18, 2011 That’s one plus for printing on good roll paper… you can size it anyway you want and trim it cleanly in the matt cutter. The minus side is getting the curl flat on thick paper. I’ve tried various uncurl methods with varying success. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
giordano Posted April 18, 2011 Share #59 Posted April 18, 2011 The big advantage of circular images is that you don't get tilted horizons. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marquinius Posted April 18, 2011 Share #60 Posted April 18, 2011 The big advantage of circular images is that you don't get tilted horizons. What? You must be thinking of 360 circular pano images. I mean, any clock will tell you differently every minute Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.