Your last sentence at best simply meaningless, insofar as it implies (to be kind) or states (to be accurate) that I am - nobody is - allowed to have an impression of any image in the absence of guidelines. In fact, "meaningless" is unnecessarily kind. It's drivel.
Jeremy,
The issue is not one of being
allowed to have an impression in the absence of guidelines. Rather, it's just a natural and unavoidable state of affairs that everyone, when viewing an image, will automatically use guidelines that they have processed and interpreted and attached a certain significance to, during the course of their life.
Of course, I'm using the term 'guideline' in a very broad sense, and such guidelines are not always able to be clearly articulated by each individual. An example of this would be the situation of someone liking or disliking an image but not being able to express why.
In other words, an image might resonate with certain embedded guidelines within the individual, but what those guidelines are specifically might sometimes be difficult for the individual to articulate.
I don't think there are any guidelines which cover bordering a black and white image in shades of cyan, but I certainly have an opinion about it. It's a bizarre thing to do.
The guidelines here relate to the issue of contrast. As I mentioned earlier, the relatively large area of ice surrounding the water is so devoid of detail and shade that it feels as boring as a blank sheet of white paper.
The dark and detailed patch of water in the centre partially redresses that problem, but not entirely. The expanse of white surrounding the hole is too great for a pleasing, compositional balance (in my opinion of course, humble or otherwise).
By creating a pale cyan border, within an outer black frame, I was simply trying to compensate for the boring expanse of white, by introducing an additional feature of contrast. The color cyan is also suggestive of a blue sky reflected off the ice.
Now you might find it bizarre. No problem. However, I think that 'bizarre' might be preferable to 'boring'.