Limits of perception

I'm sure many people have thought of this before. I was looking at some web posting and noticing the really strange "form-factor" of a photo, probably of some person by some person. It was a cropped digital image in a very ugily proportioned 250 x 700 px rectangle, probably just the minimum that was possible to frame the subject. First of all, it was possible to identify this editing action had taken place by the unusual dimensions, and what you derive from that is the message that there was intention to manipulate the image to make it more, what, clear? attractive? whatever.

That's not an unusual concept in today's digital world, where we can take for granted that nearly every image we see is modified and enhanced for our consumption. But it reverses the usual application of that modern aesthetic by drawing attention to the process. So I think of this phenomenon as a potential tool for the artist, an explicit statement that I want you to look at this, and only this. There would be problems with applying this, like the fact that people respond to strange rectangular forms as wrong, that the photographic world-view is slanted toward indirect presentation a little more than static centeredness. But there's something to it as well.