The Artful Engineer

As promised, this week’s collection of images are much higher-contrast than last week’s: lots of deep shadows and silhouettes. The image above exploits the strong late-afternoon light raking across the face of the building., which accentuates the texture and adds long shadows cast from the smallest of protuberances. My favorite part, though, is the way that it lights up the left inside edges of each arch which, in turn, reflect soft light inside the windows. The bulk of the space behind each window remains in deep shadow.

This next image has nice afternoon light on the squat tower while the rest of the building below is already in shadow. There’s a nice picture with just that, but the silhouetted palm trees add a layer of chaos and contrast to the image that make it even better. My favorite detail in this image is the sliver of light alongside the thin tree trunk; the image is so much better for it.

This next image combines several fun characteristics. It has a narrow color palette centered around the beige of the far building in the sun. The wet street picks up a matching sheen that gives the street texture. The lit portion of the building makes a graphic wedge that points at the silhouetted man. He is being followed by three people, it seems, that are still across the street. And there is half of a person showing in a shadowed doorway that he is, as yet, unaware of. There’s a lot of mystery going on here in the shadows despite the sun being very much up.

The thing I like about this next image is the way the shuttered windows in the top row are all closed and the ones in the next row down are all open so that the glass reflects the blue sky above.

This next image overlays lots of interesting architectural details onto graphic shapes.

I think the next image conveys something of how narrow streets can be in Rome.

And, finally, we have two nuns illuminated by a narrow shaft of sunlight as they cross the street. They form one corner of a triangle, the others being the silhouetted lamp near the top of the image and the third being the cars parked in the lower right.

That final image is a good segway to next week’s set which will feature streetlamps. I hope you’ll visit next week to continue our explorations of the streets of Rome.

Before you go, take a quick look at the home page; the image of the week that I posted there follows the high-contrast theme of this week. (It will rotate out after a week, so if you missed it you can see it here.)