guidelines 4

The eye is always drawn to a bright light and the greater the contrast the more it is attracted. This is a device often used by artists and photographers to draw attention to a focal point.

If we use a very white mount around a picture this will be constantly pulling attention away from the image. We therefore find the lightest point in the picture and our starting point is a shade or two darker.

A classic situation occurs when framing wedding photographs, never, never, use a mount or frame whiter than the dress. I have seen photographers make this mistake, it's usually when they have one white mount which fits all, regardless of the picture. We have five or six mounts which are classed as white, they are all slightly different.

A similar effect occurs with black and the darkest area of a picture. This is very noticeable with black and white prints, prints rather than true photographs, as there is often no black in the picture only dark grey posing as black. A full black mount will make what was black look the grey it actually is. By choosing a dark grey, but lighter than the darkest area of the picture, the dark grey in the picture will appear black again.