An interesting talk by Joel Meyerowitz about the significance of the frame in photography---- what is inside and outside, and the relationship between the two. Many reduce the frame to the edge of the photograph and thus to its content.

The frame initially appears as a device that separates the work (of art) from the non-work (the gallery or the general context.) It gives our gaze a directionality, a point of view that we come to occupy. The frame, as a part of technology (or technological apparatus), conditions our viewing habits (perception) and renders us as spectators.

A question arises: is the frame the work itself or what it is beside or adjacent to the work? And another question: can we make clear distinctions between what is inside and outside and between perception and technics.

Formalists argued that photography has clear, discrete edges and that these edges defined it as a separate and unique medium with a specific history and aesthetic criteria. This gives us a formalist history of photography that disavows the sheer multiplicity of uses, techniques, and discourses that are the field of photography.

The problem with the formalist position, as advocated by John Szarkowski, ignores the plurality of discourses in which photography has participated in favour of photography itself.