The Artful Engineer

When I go through my catalog of images of a place like Bruges, I try to find a few unifying themes that would make good blog posts. While I don’t set out looking for specific things when set out with the camera, I can usually find coherent groupings of images after the fact. So, last week featured reflections, and this week features bicycles. Given the narrow streets, canals, and tourists, I can understand the attraction of bicycles in Bruges. And they were parked all over the city.

The image above is one of my favorites from the trip. I would have loved it even without the face in the window, but with it the image rises from nice to striking. Despite its uniqueness, I have no recollection of having taken it. It is geotagged, so I know where it was taken (just down the street from the Torture Museum) and timetagged, so I know when it was taken (within 20 minutes of my first Bruges photograph). But I don’t remember doing it. Given that I have over 1200 images of Bruges (and another 300 of Damme nearby) from a mere 72 hour visit, I guess the fact that I don’t remember a given picture isn’t surprising, but I still find it remarkable. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember taking most of my photographs. I’m going to have to mull this over more, but I think that, usually, I see something interesting, figure out how to photograph it, and move on. Then I tend to relive the experience when I am going through the images later. I’m not sure if that is good or bad, but that’s what I do.

This next image is a fun combination of old and new. I don’t know that I would have the heart to drill holes into that historic brickwork for the sake of mounting a sign, especially one that tells people to do what they are going to do anyway: park their bike.

Bruges is filled with nice brickwork. Old brickwork has a lot of character. In the image below, there are different zones to it: the cobbles on the street, the darker brick at the bottom of the wall, the more worn brick above that, and the less worn brick up higher. There are a few little details that are nice: the leaf in front of the door matches the brick’s color, the number sign by the door looks like the light-colored stones in the arch above, the little light patch in the brick to the left of the bicycle matches both of these, and the door has a nice contrasting texture.

This next window is a great combination of colors. Here the bicycle is just peeking into the frame, but everyone can easily fill in the rest with their imagination.

The owner of the following building did a nice job decorating: the white wreaths fit perfectly. The fallen orange leaves coordinate nicely, too, being a complementary color to the blue paint, but I doubt they were deliberately placed there so the owner only gets credit for not raking them up.

All of the images above have featured well-maintained structures. In this next image, only the bicycle looks well-maintained:

Thanks for tagging along with this week’s post. I’m always hoping for new subscribers, so if you know anyone that would enjoy my photographs, please send them a link. Also, don’t forget to take a quick peak at my home page; I added an extra bicycle-in-Bruges image there.

Thanks!