Facing a photo by Chichico Alkmim: mistakes between framing and composition in the photographic portrait

Abstract

The text has as its starting corpus a studio portrait by Chichico Alkmim made in Diamantina, MG, around the 1910s. The dynamics of visual organization are approached according to the concept of photography’s technological and ideological program; the border functions that operate the image frame in relation to framing, composition and outline; and the outside frame. Based on the coexistence of two disparate social groups appearing in the image, initial elaborations and outlines on the notion of framing and compositional misunderstanding are sought. Thus, with the support of historiographic data, the objective is to demonstrate that marginal occupation in peripheral portions of the photographic image corresponds to internalized and elaborated social segregation dynamics which came from the 19th century and continue in the historical pathway of photography.