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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Nine: Composition -- putting it together > Arcade, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007
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07-MAY-2007

Arcade, Phoenix, Arizona, 2007

The walls of five entryways on the right lead to a long walkway, creating an arcade that flanks one of Phoenix’s largest office buildings. I waited until a person passed through the far entryway, turned, and began her long walk towards me. I made this image just as she took that first step after her turn. I pre-composed the image based on the dramatic interplay of light and shadow and the repeating rhythms created by the walls of the multiple entryways. It is as if those walls are walking towards us along with the woman. Our imaginations resonate to the repetitive beat of color and line, shadow and light. Suspended in time, the woman’s foot creates tension as it is about to strike the ground. That tension becomes the focal point of the entire image – a place of convergence, and an expression of energy.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/500s f/8.0 at 52.8mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis21-Jun-2007 17:26
Thanks, Dean. I welcome you to my galleries and hope you will come often to learn and comment. Thanks.
daanstringer.com20-Jun-2007 23:02
This is a great one!
Phil Douglis17-May-2007 05:50
Thank you, Aloha. I'm glad you are able to follow and appreciate the essence of my compositional choices here. And you are correct about the purpose of composition itself. It is not, as some people think, the mere exercise of aesthetics for their own sake. When we compose an image, we are designing it as an organizing force for comprehension. You put it so beautifully, when you said that composition brings the random chaos of reality into an order that expresses an idea.
Aloha Diao Lavina17-May-2007 03:36
Very well put in your description of this photo, Phil. It's the midst of the motion that makes this photograph an interactive composition--the viewer is led to the photograph, and then led out. Most good compositions inevitably follow a design that organizes the chaos of reality into the order of artistic expression, and that is echoed in this photograph superbly.
Phil Douglis11-May-2007 06:21
You have a very sharp eye, Charu. There was indeed a man standing there, and I darkened that area of the picture with photoshop so that he is still there, but barely seen if at all. When he was fully present, he destroyed the image. As a phantom figure, he adds to it, as you note. I have no problems with doing this kind of thing -- it is very much as we used to do in the film darkroom. It was called burning and dodging. We can now do the same thing electronically.
Guest 11-May-2007 06:16
great play with light and shadows here. I also like the fact that there is something vague and nebolous in the left dark corner of the image. the eye is drawn to that after seeing the woman walking...and it adds to the drama in the image.
Phil Douglis11-May-2007 00:53
M.C. Escher was the master of infinity and making the impossible real. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._C._Escher )
I see what you are driving at here, Tim -- until we study this very closely, her pivot is ambiguous, and the environment around her is as orderly and overpowering -- and indeed mysterious -- as the wealthy organizations that built it.
Tim May10-May-2007 23:46
This seems almost Ecsher-like - I find it hard to tell if the woman is coming or going in the over powering drama of the corporate world
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