IN THE ENDLESS BANTER, re: the medium and its apparatus, FLOATING AROUND webscape, the idea of size is a reoccuring topic. More often than not, those discussions are focused on the size of a sensor / camera / lens / et al .... too big? too little? just the right size? and so on. But, when it comes to does size matter?, re: the medium and it apparatus, I am more interested in that question regarding the size of prints.
At the start of this topic, let me write that I do not believe that there is one right size for a photographic print. Over the years, I have viewed, in galleries and museums, prints both large and small ... from Jeff Wall's enormous "prints" (actually transparencies), the largest of which are 17'x46', to Walker Evans' Polaroid prints. Not to forget KODAK's Grand Central Station Colorama, 18'x60'.
Then there's my house. The largest prints, of which there are only a few, on the walls of my house are 24"x24" inches (1 print is 1.5'x3'). Most are 16"x16" with an assortment of 10"x10" prints. Quite a few are 5"x5" (my snapshot prints)
All that written, here's my point. In all of the aforementioned cases, the prints are/were the "right" size inasmuch as the sizes were appropriate for the venue in which they were hung. That is, each venue was/is big enough to allow a viewer to stand at distance from which the picture could/can be viewed in its entirety. And, iMo, that is how a picture should be viewed.
To wit, when a picture maker makes a picture, he/she imposes a frame around the edges of the scene. Most of the real world is excluded and a "slice" of it is selected / isolated and recorded. iMo, in this process of selection, good picture makers impose a frame in order to capture and "arrange" (by their literal POV, aka: where they stand) a visually interesting placement (within the frame) of visual elements-line, shape, tone, color, et al-which, independent of the picture's referent(s) and to my eye and sensibilities, make a picture a joy / pleasure to look at.
A large part of that joy / pleasure for me is a quality found in a picture that I call visual energy. I like my eye to "dance" around the surface of a print and "bang" into the frame's edges only to be sent skittering back into the heart of the matter. To be accurate, that is, quite literally, the first thing I see when viewing a picture. And, I can only see it when I can view a print in its entirety.
So, for me, there is no "right" size in terms of physical dimensions. The only right size, for me, is a size that fits the place in which a picture is hung, which allows me to see the whole thing.
PS All of the above written, I must also write that I do believe that smallish prints-18'x18' or less?-do possess a sense of intimacy and "preciousness" that larger prints lack.
