Heroes Not Zombies

I’m not especially aware of framing my shots when I take them but, clearly, composition is important to me. I don’t press the button until what I see in the viewfinder pleases me.

We frame what we look at all the time, and, mostly, we do it unconsciously.

Framing is a way of directing our attention. We include what we want to focus on, and exclude from the frame, what we wish to ignore.

We humans have many ways of creating frames, not least by telling stories and by deliberately pointing towards whatever we want others to notice.

Magicians pull off their tricks by diverting the audience’s attention, by getting them to “watch this”, not that.

Politicians do the same. Whether we call it “spin” or “setting the agenda”, they frame what they want us to pay attention to, and exclude what they hope to hide.

Advertisers tell stories, direct attention, create frames, to get us to pay attention to particular products.

PR companies portray for their clients the images, the stories, they want the public to pay attention to.

There are lots of people busy creating frames for you to look through. Again, for the individual viewer, that’s mostly unconscious. So, sometimes it’s a good idea to notice the frames, to become conscious of where we are directly our attention, what we are including, and what we are excluding……whether we are the ones doing the framing, or somebody wishing to influence us is doing the framing on our behalf.