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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Two: Black and white travel photography – making less into more > Stadhuis, Bruges, Belgium, 2005
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11-JUN-2005

Stadhuis, Bruges, Belgium, 2005

One of the oldest and finest town halls in Belgium, Bruges’ Stadhuis was built between 1376 and 1420. I am not interested in making postcard views of historic buildings. Instead I try to express their essence. For me, this building was steeped in history and grandeur. To say it was impressive would be an understatement. I took many photos of it during my two day stay in Bruges, but none of them expressed its character as much as this one. It took an act of nature to help me accomplish this goal. It was early morning, and the sun was just coming up behind the clouds. I positioned the sun behind one of the elegant statues that crown the building, and was awed by billowing backlit translucent streams of clouds exploding from that very point in the picture. In color, the sky was a deep blue, and there was a tinge of reflective coloration in the clouds as well. It was beautiful to look at, but it made the scene look too real. When I converted it to black and white, reality is replaced by symbolism – the clouds represent power and mystery, two of the qualities I sensed in the building itself. So black and white it is. It was worth visiting Bruges for just this moment.

Canon PowerShot G6
1/2000s f/8.0 at 15.8mm full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis11-Mar-2007 06:46
Glad you hear the music of the picture, Aloha -- I did as well. It was, you say, majestic and triumphant. I am prone to humming to myself while I work, and this was one of those moments. I am delighted you feel a sense of epiphany here as well -- this image can be viewed in either context of that word: a manifestation of a supernatural being, or a moment of revelation. In doing so, you add a new dimension of meaning to this image for me. Thank you.
Aloha Diao Lavina11-Mar-2007 05:35
I agree that the decision to use black and white stems from the purpose of the photograph. Here the sky paints texture into the composition and contrasts dramatically with the backlit building. The rendition almost approaches a sense of epiphany. I hear triumphant and graceful woodwinds, and a robust brass trio.
Phil Douglis11-Dec-2005 01:36
Hi, Carol -- good to have you back. You sensed my purpose in make this image -- by showing less, I try to say more about the times and troubles these figures have looked down upon over the centuries. They are anonymous, to be sure -- by abstracting them I've tried to change these cultural icons to abstracted symbols of faded authority. Thanks for the comment.
Phil Douglis08-Jul-2005 18:03
Aha -- IMPLIED detail it is. If we study the black building closely, we can begin to see windows,etc, so you are right. I have indeed "held" detail, but not in the conventional sense. I always use the spot metering mode, Alister -- it helps me "paint with light." I metered on the brightest part of the clouds to hold whatever detail was in those clouds, and let the rest of the image fall where it may. I then converted to black and white, and played with the image with Photoshop's Channel Mixer control a bit to adjust tonality. And I finally opened the image in Photoshop's Shadow/Highlight control panel, and adjusted its sliders to get just the right exposure relationship. In the end, the adjustments were very minor. Most of the work was done by the camera itself, responding to how the spot meter interpreted the spot I was focusing on here.
alibenn08-Jul-2005 00:43
It's like coming to the same store from different directions on a street. If I'd spot metered this I would have metered from just beside the brightest spot on the sky in order to maintain all that detail. That would have rendered the building almost black I guess. If we had spot-metered the building we would have no sky detail, but plenty of detail on the building. I assumed you had metered the sky and then dragged some detail out of the shadows, but I think your camera has averaged this one out, was this spot or evaluative metering?

Either way, I'm glad the implied detail is there, a full silluoette would not IMO be as strong an image.
Phil Douglis07-Jul-2005 18:26
Thanks, Alister, for this comment. You say you like the way I have held on to shadow details here, but I am not sure I know what you may be referring to here. I've removed as much detail as I could from the building and its statues in order to stress the textures in the sky and let the imagination fill in the rest.
alibenn07-Jul-2005 12:36
I was interested to come back into your black and white gallery as I was wanting to think some more about abstraction and to cleanse myself of the idea of using BW for "arts" sake, for impact rather than intent!! Finding this image has been a bonus, a fine representation of 14th centuary European architecture, bu, as you say with more expression than a standard postcard image, pretty though they are...I particularly like the way you have held onto shadow detail, having said that a darker silhouette would have increased the abstraction, different, but not better, as you have a way of saying !!!
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