The Artful Engineer

I was bound to have a post that was largely isolated windows, doors, and drainpipes, wasn’t I? Well, this is the Bruges Edition of exactly that.

These first two images, above and below, are obviously of the same building. For whatever reason I did not take an image of the door and the window together—it either didn’t occur to me or a parked car may have blocked that view. Regardless, I like these as taken separately. The textures and color palette are great—the little bit of green works well in both images. In the image above, the cables across the top and the sliver of sidewalk below help frame the subject.

In this next image, the lacy curtain pulled slightly aside adds some interest and asymmetry to an otherwise symmetric image. I did correct the perspective to square up the window, but you can still tell that I was not actually straight-on to the window. (How to tell: you can see the inside of the brick alongside the right side of the window, but not the left.) I was forced into this position, however, because otherwise my reflection would have been in the glass. Sometimes that can be fixed, but sometimes not, so I avoided it.

I suppose that this next image can be considered an environmental portrait of a birdhouse. It looks forlorn and forgotten, despite its bright and happy color.

This is my favorite image from today’s set. The brick makes a perfect backdrop, especially with the way that the oxidized copper follows the mortar at the bottom of the frame. I am fond of contrasts of texture, which this image certainly has, and I always love the green of oxidized copper. The pipe coming in from the side breaks the otherwise perfect balance of the composition and provides some tonal variation, too: the top of the pipe is nicely highlighted by the overcast sky above and the bottom is softly shadowed. The drainpipe itself has lots of nice details to explore, too.

This final image is interesting because it is so not-quite-regular: the layers of brick are uneven and the planking on the window is uniform, but inexplicably askew.

Next week, at long last, will be the end of Bruges for this blog. After that, we will switch back to my native continent and try to catch up with my adventures there.

Thank you for visiting!