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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Seven: Bringing far to near with the telephoto lens > A crack in time, Ghent, Belgium, 2005
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14-JUN-2005

A crack in time, Ghent, Belgium, 2005

This clock, on the tower of Ghent's old post office, peeks between the bricks and stones of Ghent's 12th century guildhouses. It is one of Ghent's most visible landmarks. I made this image from about 200 yards away, shooting through an opening between two medieval Flemish guildhalls on Ghent’s riverside promenade. The ancient brickwork of those buildings was deeply shadowed, but because the clock tower was so high, it was still catching the last rays of the setting sun at 9:40 pm on a long June evening. I used a medium telephoto focal length of almost 200mm to frame the golden face of the clock tower within the darkened brick facades of the guildhalls. It enabled me to bring three buildings together within the same image that were three blocks apart in the real world.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/250s f/4.0 at 36.4mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis17-Aug-2006 02:38
Thanks, Stephen. I am delighted you find the walls in this image to be so special. I know nothing about restored walls, but yet they spoke of great age to me, and give us a wonderful glimpse into time.
Guest 17-Aug-2006 00:49
I really like this one Phil! Not only is the title clever, but as a restoration specialist I can appreciate the restored brick in the foreground. The clock appears to glow and the walls could tell wonderful stories. One of my favourites....
Phil Douglis25-Jun-2006 18:40
You wrap each layer of this image in symbolic meaning for us, Marisa. As Kal said earlier, with each tick of the clock, everything gets a tick older, and the previous layer represents time that has passed. You add the dimension of light to the meaning of this image -- seeing light as representing conscious life, in contrast to the darkness of "blind vision." Thanks so much for this interpretation -- you are telling us here why I call this image a "crack in time," -- it represents the moments of life itself. Your comments remind me that a clock in a bell tower mournfully marks time -- not just by the hour, but by the life. A single life, represented by the light here, may be brief and therefore small - the darkness around that light always overwhelms it. Yet the light always remains, shining amidst the continuum of time. Life goes on, tick by tick by tick.
Guest 25-Jun-2006 15:02
no matter how hard we try to stop time with artificial barriers, it continue to mark the history: indiviual and collective life go on second after second. If we accept this, we can live in the 'light' that time offer us, instead of the darkness of a blind vision.
Phil Douglis06-Mar-2006 19:17
Thanks, Amaury, for this info. I used the map in my guidebook to figure out the name of clock and obviously erred. I will rewrite my caption accordingly. Thanks again.
Amaury Henderick 06-Mar-2006 17:58
Just a little comment: the clock you see isn't part of the Belfort, but of the former post office, now a shopping mall. The Belfort is one of the three big towers that are in fact behind this building. This post office was built in the late 19th, early 20th century and isn't really medieval, whereas the Belfort is partially medieval (12th or 13th century I think, except for the top of the tower, with the clock, which was also built in the late 19th century. The Belfort does have a clock though (and I can see it from my bed, it's very useful sometimes), but it's not this one.
Phil Douglis27-Dec-2005 02:21
Thanks, Lara, for referring to the dimensional aspects of this image. Not only is there a play on light, but also a directional contrast. The illuminated clock tower and the stone building at left appear flat, while the old brick structure at right leads the eye into the image through a series of steps.
Lara S27-Dec-2005 00:28
The play with the lights makes it look like it's 2 dimensions coming together.
Phil Douglis10-Dec-2005 04:17
Or is it a peek into the past from the stones of an older past?
jack 09-Dec-2005 21:31
A peek into the present from the stones of the past.
Phil Douglis06-Dec-2005 15:54
Thanks, Scott, for this comment. This image uses contrast in color to juxtapose three buildings locked into an embrace of time, light, and space. I did not wait for the perfect light in this case, however. I try to plan my shooting time to take advantage of the light during the "golden hours" -- the two hours following dawn, or, as in this case, the two hours prior to sunset. Rich, warm, low-angled light will be there waiting for us.
scott 06-Dec-2005 08:10
Excellent image Phil! The colors speak of old and new, the dullness of the foreground elements contrast nicely with the vibrance of the background elements. I'd have to commend you for waiting for the right time to take a shot of this!
Phil Douglis30-Jul-2005 07:14
Thanks for this comment, Sonia. It is fascinating how this image evokes so many interpretations, and all of them branching out from my original intention. I sometimes feel that a photograph is very much a tree. It keeps on growing, and from its trunk many branches emerge, each unique, but each also a part of the whole. I am glad you came to this image, Sonia, and said what you said.. Your own image athttp://www.pbase.com/soniamak/image/46489319 seemed to me to be about entombment, a study in layers, just as this one.
Guest 30-Jul-2005 04:20
Thanks for pointing me to this photo Phil. If the stones in my image symbolizes a tomb, I can see the 3 different masonry buildings here represent different periods of time. The clock slips through the darkened front and middle layer, the past, and landed on the last layer - a golden lit building which, I think, symbolizes the present. The compression of the three different buildings here acts as a metaphor of compressing time. By peeping through the crack in time, it lets us think about the faded past that helped human evolve into current success.
Phil Douglis23-Jul-2005 22:14
Transcendence! What a wonderful word to describe the function of the telephoto lens, Tim. It does indeed help us to go beyond the limitations imposed upon us by space. I love your delightful riff on the telephoto lens itself as a metaphor, taking us places we can't reach with our bodies or our eyes, places we have never been, changing the way we see the past, present and future.
Tim May23-Jul-2005 19:10
In feel, this is so like the image of the person on the boat going under the bridge. How fitting that this gallery about using a telephoto lens has so many images about transcendence. It this case the clock and the glorious use of light and color take us to the future, yet it is the evening light that is causing the glow -
The lens is a creator of controlled distortion - in this gallery it takes us to places we can't reach with either our bodies or our eyes.
Time - also takes places we haven't been, and as in the Antique Market... image, we are presented with the way our genes transform our present.
Travel, also, has the effect of changing the way we "see" our own world and culture.
Hmm, telephoto lens as metaphor - never thought of that before.
Phil Douglis13-Jul-2005 21:23
What a beautiful way you have of seeing this image, Jen. As you may know, Photography means "writing with light" in Greek. It is true -- as you say, light paints the world, and then we can use the camera to write with that light, rearranging it as expression.
Jennifer Zhou13-Jul-2005 09:26
This is just amazing!! It is as if we tear the world into pieces and glue them back together in a more abstractive way. But the truth is this is the real world painted by light, and rearranged by your camera.
Phil Douglis04-Jul-2005 18:24
This is what I intended, Mo. A juxtaposition of layers and colors and symbols, flattened and blended into a seamless whole by the telephoto lens.
monique jansen04-Jul-2005 07:38
this works very well, you really have the feeling like you are looking back in time - the clock, the colors, the ancient buildings, it all comes together
Phil Douglis02-Jul-2005 19:52
Thanks, Kal, for expanding the meaning of this image. I gladly accept your version. As for using a clock and also avoiding description, note that what you see here is only a partial clock. Just enough to grasp the time and nothing more. This image is quite abstract, Kal, and uses incongruity in light and texture as well, to express the human values at work here.
Kal Khogali02-Jul-2005 13:49
Time passing, the clock ticks and things and we grow old. New things come, here you show the new as the next layer, beyond the past, and that in turn will grow old. I have never taken a picture with a Clock as context or subject Phil, I fear it would look descriptive. This is so expressive.
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