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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fifty Four: Opposing diagonals – composing with triangles > Market breakfast, Dalat, Vietnam, 2007
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27-DEC-2007

Market breakfast, Dalat, Vietnam, 2007

This woman was enjoying a bowl of soup for breakfast while I made her picture. She saw me, but her mind seemed elsewhere. She wears the traditional round conical hat, so common in rural Vietnam. The hat itself takes on triangular form when perceived in a photograph, and in this case it acts as the apex of a triangular composition. The table at which she eats is filled with bowls and soups. I make that horizontal row of materials the base of a triangle. The woman rises up from it in triangular fashion, largely because of the shape of the hat she wears. She is mostly obscured in shadow with highlights on one hand and on the top of the hat. Yet that is enough to at least imply a triangular shape. I normally try to avoid placing my subjects in the center of my frame. Yet with the triangular composition and her imperious, dignified manner, the center placement is appropriately formal.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/250s f/4.5 at 48.7mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis26-Feb-2008 20:58
Thanks for pointing out the role of the bent roof here, Tim -- it does seem to be giving in to the force of her pointed hat. And yes, I can see that battered metal roof symbolizing years of hard life, often brutal life. Thanks for seeing the role of dignity here too -- I called her manner "imperious and dignified," and you have added tenacity to the mixture. There are several thematic devices that recall Dorthea Lange's Migrant Mother image ( seehttp://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=52734 ) -- one of the most famous documentary photographs ever made. Both women use a hand to express their feelings, both faces reflect difficult lives, and both go beyond description to expressively symbolize the challenges life may throw at us. And they both hold up a mirror to the viewer -- asking us to see in these faces a bit of our own.
Tim May26-Feb-2008 17:43
Dignity is so powerfully shown here. It is as if that dignity is amplified by the triangular composition. Yet there are other elements, besides her face, that accentuate that sense of dignity. One is the gesture and light of the hand, and another very subtle one which is the bend of the roof. It is almost as if her dignity and tenacity can overcome even the most oppressive of histories to break through. I am reminded here of Dorthea Lang's Migrant Mother.
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