This week we looked at the frame as a still image. Dan screened L’Avventura, an Italian film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, famous for its carefully and meticulously arranged shots. Screening this film allowed us to go about picking apart and analysing individual frames in an attempt to appreciate the immense level of detail and effort that is put into the filmmaking process, exemplifying the idea of the importance of imagery within film. Dan highlighted individual still frames from L’Avventura, noting that the brilliance of the film lies in the fact that on their own, these frames can be mistaken for photography as opposed to cinematography, in turn underlining Antonioni’s astonishing attention to detail and mastery of the craft.

This idea of the still image as a frame is linked into our first assignment for the semester, in which we were required to frame 50 photographs, selecting 5 final photos that we think are significant in terms of what we’ve learned, or would like to learn about ‘the frame’. I’ve always been fascinated by the idea of mise en scene, and how is it that a frame can translate such complex conceptual ideas and their meanings to viewers of a film. As such I found myself taking very cinematic kind of shots. In this way, I found I could relate to this week’s reading, in which Susan Sontag states that photography has become “one of the principal devices for experiencing something”. This particular phrase resonated with me, as I tried to explore through my shots what it is about good photography that makes it so captivating. I tried honing my fascination with these philosophical ideas in narrowing the 50 down to my final 5 shots, which ended up being very landscape based, painting a dark and moody scenery that to me, when attempting to analyse, could have deep meanings attributed to them.

This week has really opened up my eyes to what the frame could be, in comparison with what I had actually imagined it could be. I hope I’m able to explore a little bit more about this aspect of the frame in the future.