Doorknob, Victorian Hotel, Bridgeport, California, 2004 photo

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Four: Finding meaning in details > Doorknob, Victorian Hotel, Bridgeport, California, 2004

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18-OCT-2004

Doorknob, Victorian Hotel, Bridgeport, California, 2004

The swirls on the ancient brass doorknob at the entrance to Bridgeport’s haunted Victorian Hotel echo the swirl on the ornamental door trim behind it. Many hands have grasped this shiny knob over the years – perhaps even a few ghostly ones. I moved in very close to focus on the knob, placing both the doorplate and trim out of focus. My off center placement and side angle makes the knob protrude into space, inviting us to grab and twist.

Canon PowerShot G6
1/125s f/4.0 at 25.1mm full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Donald Verger		06-Jun-2005 08:57
great! voted

Phil Douglis		08-Dec-2004 04:27
Tactile, indeed, Clara. Good eye -- the knob and woodwork represent different periods. This hotel, like most old structures surviving into our time, is a pastiche of the old and the new, the elegant and the crude, the tasteful and the ugly. At least the swirl motif in both brass and wood is constant.

Phil Douglis		08-Dec-2004 04:24
Yes, Nut, the door was closed. And yes, I fully intended this image to draw your imagination, and the right side of the image, with its swirling woodwork echoing the swirling brass, does just that. After I photographed it, I grabbed this knob, turned it, and entered a ghostly place. I made sure my visit was during the day. I would not look forward to spending an evening in one of its haunted upstairs rooms.

Guest		07-Dec-2004 20:01
Yes a very tactile image. The ornamentated brass does not match the door colors and design, evidence of the different ages this building has suffered and minds working on it, some maybe with little care or taste.

nut		07-Dec-2004 18:57
Shining brass (I guess) and Reflection of Phil on the doorknob here said "Haunted". The door was closed when you took this photo, right? You put our attention here; at this doorknob and left space on the right side for viewer imagination. But this is the Victorian Hotel, it's twilight zone of ghost.

Phil Douglis		22-Nov-2004 05:58
i am so relieved, I thought we had come to some kind of a mental impasse here, yet it only was just one simple word that you missed: "haunted." And once you found it, since English is not your first language, you still had to look up its meaning. It's amazing, isn't it, how a single word can change the meaning of an entire picture for you? That's why we write captions, Jen -- to give people the tools they need to appreciate what we are trying to express to them. From this day forward, I am sure you will take great care to get every bit of context you can before coming to any conclusions about the meaning of a picture. I am delighted that we understand each other on this one at last.

Jennifer Zhou		22-Nov-2004 05:38
Oh...That's why! Phil, I missed the most important word in your caption---haunted. This is a new english words to me..haha..I didn't look it up in the dictionary. :( Now I totally understand what you are trying to do here. To get an intimate shot that invite us entering the haunted hotel....Wonderful idea! Very clear and powerful way of presenting this place to us!!! I am totally charmed~~~ Another lesson for me---never miss a word in the caption, I may then miss the whole point! Jen

Phil Douglis		22-Nov-2004 04:01
I know you that you are able to understand how this picture works, Jen, as a tactile image --with those intimate details inviting us to grab it, feel it, and yes, turn it. But it's what happens NEXT that I want the viewer's imagination to focus on, and that is what you are still having trouble understanding. Once you grab that knob and turn it, YOU ARE GOING BACK IN TIME! Back to the past, to a place where ghosts dwell. It is nothing at all like the coach shot, Jen. I want to raise emotions here -- perhaps even a bit of fear. Remember what I said in the first sentence of my explanation -- this is a HAUNTED Victorian Hotel. The viewer must realize this when they reach out to turn that knob, but I don't think you've made this connection yet, or if you have, you haven't mentioned it. So yes, this picture stimulates the senses. But my objective is to make them think they are opening a door to enter a haunted place. I think that what you may be having difficulty with here, is understanding my context for this picture. I give this context to the viewer in the explanation under the picture. This picture will not express this idea if the viewer does not have that context. Hope this helps, Jen.

Jennifer Zhou		22-Nov-2004 03:49
Phil, When I said in my last comment " we call feel it with our hands", I meant that viewers are invited to grab the knob, only that is what you said in your caption so I didn't want to repeat it, but I did acknowledge that! For the underlaying reason I asked, I was just wondering if you want to express some ideas--- just as you did with your previous two pictures. Maybe this picture works in different way just as the Coach shot-----it doesn't intent to stir our emotions..And for this doorknob picture you just focus on stimulating viewers' senses. Is that so? Jen

Phil Douglis		21-Nov-2004 19:54
Thanks, Jen, for coming back and trying to look at this picture more objectively. And yes it is intimate, because it invites you in to the picture on a personal level. It demands that you reach out and touch it, and touching is an intimate experience. Sensuality -- involving the senses of touching, seeing, tasting, hearing, or smelling -- is often rooted in intimacy. As for those "other underlying reasons" for making this picture -- you must have somehow missed my explanation of what I was trying to accomplish here. As I said in the caption, i am stressing the power of the detail in that doorknob to evoke a tactile sensation, inviting the viewer to grab that knob and enter the past. I am daring you to turn that knob and go back into time! That's the whole point of WHY I am stressing this detail so intimately. Can you see that now?

Jennifer Zhou		21-Nov-2004 12:29
Phil, to forget the fact it is you made this picture. I find it is a very intimate shot of the doorknob. To be intimate---we can also apply it to things. And it too provides a visual impact and an emotional impact on the viewers. It is so close and so real that we can as if feel it with our hands. I see why you put this picture in your detail gallery. Do you have any other underlaying reason for making this picture? Phil! Jen

Phil Douglis		20-Nov-2004 19:25
Thanks, Jen, for being the first to comment on this image. I posted it in my "Detail" gallery because of the power of the detail in that doorknob to evoke a tactile sensation, inviting the viewer to grab that knob and enter the past. You concentrate on the role of color, which compliments that detail. I agree that the contrast of the old brass to the freshly painted blue and white suggests old vs new, the well-used vs fresh and clean. However I feel your comment is heavily influenced by the context you bring to it -- a context of this as a learning gallery, with Phil as your teacher. I am flattered by your interpretation of this picture as a "doorway to knowledge," but I urge you to also step back and look at this image objectively. Forget for a moment that I made it, and that I use it here, as i do all of my images, as a teaching example. Look at it purely as a picture in itself. What does it say you then?

Jennifer Zhou		20-Nov-2004 11:46
I was drawed by the colors of this picture. The contrast of colors here is quite interesting to me. One is rich, ancient, full of stories, like a wise, knowledgeable teacher. And the other two colors---bule and white, seem just be newly printed, they are youny, innocent, pure and inexperience, just like a student who doesn't yet understand the world out there but smart enough to do things as teacher does, and trying to figure out why is that...Just like the swirls both on the doorknob and on the door trim.. To say teacher is like doorknob can't be more perfect because teacher is the very person helps us to open the door of knowledge. Surprisingly I find the refection of Phil on the surface of the doorknob..what a coincidence! I would like to hear your ideas for this picture! Jen

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