Hip To Be Square

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Although most photographs are presented - either portrait or landscape - in various aspect ratios of the rectangular form, I've always preferred the square format image for its purity and adaptability, and the fact that it doesn't mimic any of the cinematic formats. Don't get me wrong, I love most other aspect ratios; 4:3, 16:9, 1.85:1, 2.39:1, and so forth. But for still photography, it's still square that gets my vote. When I worked at Birmingham University as a photographer/technician in the late seventies, my favourite camera by far was the department's Hasselblad 500C. The definitive 6x6cm [2-1/4"x 2-1/4"] roll-film camera of its era - and it still is definitive today, to be honest - a camera of eminent simplicity of use, military build and optically superb, via its Zeiss Planar lens; producing quality images really was like falling off the proverbial log. But at the end of it all, it's the format that is key: a square frame doesn't theatrically constrain a composition like a rectangular one inevitably does, with its implicit referencing of the worlds of art, theatre and cinema. Somehow, and quite peculiarly, the square frame is more natural and open, almost akin to vision itself, allowing the framed subject space in which to breathe and relate to its context within the neutrality of the frame's boundary. Just a thought...

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