The Artful Engineer

Bruges has a lot of brick walls. Most are unpainted. Of the ones that are painted, most are in muted colors either due to intent or age. When there are bolder colors, they are usually on the doors and window shutters. All of this is admittedly a generalization, but the bolder colors usually caught my eye, and the theme of this post is bold colors and graphic shapes. Most of the images were from one walk when I took the long zoom for a change. I’m glad I did, because the longer focal length forced me to isolate details just because I couldn’t fit an entire wall in the frame. Taking a walk with a very different lens is a sure way to add variety to your images.

The image above is a symmetric composition of a not-quite-symmetric scene. I think the window-ish pattern of holes and the mismatched height of the top hinges make it more interesting. The green moss on the pavers brings some nature into the otherwise completely man-made theme. But gradually sloping sidewalks like this are definitely problematic: it’s easy for them to just look “wrong” in a photograph. The sliver of triangular concrete below the door helps reinforce that the ground is sloping and not the camera. One way I try to help in a composition like this is by not placing the bottom edge of the wall too close to the bottom of the frame; by giving the sidewalk some space, it is not as visually obvious in a two-dimensional rendering that there is a gradual taper from one side to the other.

This won’t come as a surprise, but I have a lot of pictures of doors. One of the ways to have variety in an oft-photographed subject is to compose it at different scales. So, you can photograph an entire building with an interesting door, or part of a building that includes a door, or just the door, or just part of the door, or just a small detail of the door. This next image is obviously in the part-of-a-door category, and while it may seem like a simple image, there is a lot going on. The curving arch contrasts with the rows of brick above and the vertical pattern of the door below. The earthly colors and flat texture of the bricks contrast with the smooth and somewhat glossy painted door. The brickwork is regular, but unevenly so, whereas the patterns in the door are very precise. It’s carefully composed, with the spacing of details relative to the edges deliberately arranged. The pattern of rivets along the bottom provide a foundation for the image, too, preventing the eye from wanting to fall out the bottom of the frame. The triangle of rivets in the lower right, in particular, anchor the whole thing.

A long focal length can simplify a scene both by limiting what’s in the frame and by reducing the feeling of depth. This next image is, at one level, just four bands of color that look nice together. There is some nice variation in texture, too, and red tree pops primarily because it is a boldly saturated color amid pastels, but it also has the most texture and detail. I’m not sure what’s going on in Europe with red Christmas trees, but this wasn’t the first I saw on the trip.

I really like the simplicity, textures, and colors of this next image, although the smooth wall seems out of place in Bruges. The bars and the dark space behind them lend a sense of mystery, too. This is another instance of a slightly sloping sidewalk, but since I left it a fairly wide band across the bottom of the frame, it does not seem jarring. I think I could correct it in Affinity Photo if I tried.

Well, I tried. It was pretty easy, actually. I don’t think these will show side-by-side if you look at this post on a phone, but on a computer you can easily compare the two versions:

What do you think? I usually fine-tune the perspective to make sure that verticals are vertical and horizontals are horizontal; do you think this added step is worthwhile in a case like this?

(By the way, when I did this I figured out that the top of the blue paint isn’t quite level, either, but it was pretty close and trying to fix someone’s paint job would cause other mischief.)

Here is another graphic part-of-a-door image:

I like drainpipes, too. Here’s part of one that’s just a little bit icky:

Since there are no drips on the outside, I doubt that this bucket is actually a leftover bucket of paint used on the wall behind it, but it sure looks like it is:

I hope you enjoyed these images from Bruges. Next week I will show some nighttime images from this medieval city.

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