Weeping door-knocker, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005 photo

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Four: Finding meaning in details > Weeping door-knocker, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005

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29-OCT-2005

Weeping door-knocker, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005

This doorknocker is a symbolic rendering of the sun. Someone has added an incongruous touch, painting out the eyes of the sun with white paint and adding six tears in the bargain. The old wooden door, with its weeping and blind sun, may tell us something about the souls of those who may dwell within. The whimsical yet profound alternations to the doorknocker may be very small in size, but they are large in meaning. I had to move in very close to the knocker to make those details large enough to see, and then size the picture large enough on this web page to allow them to stress their meaning.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
1/100s f/5.0 at 20.8mm iso80 hide exif

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time	29-Oct-2005 16:59:27
Make	Panasonic
Model	DMC-FZ30
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	20.8 mm
Exposure Time	1/100 sec
Aperture	f/5
ISO Equivalent	80
Exposure Bias	-0.33
White Balance	(10)
Metering Mode	multi spot (3)
JPEG Quality	(6)
Exposure Program	program (2)
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Phil Douglis		09-Aug-2009 23:52
Thanks, Biel, for adding mystery to the list of ideas expressed in this image. Who painted those tears, and why? It is a question that none of us can answer, yet all of us can wonder and feel and think about it.

Guest		09-Aug-2009 23:35
realy mistic shot-tearts of sun,V

Phil Douglis		27-Jan-2006 18:49
Thanks, Antonio, for your kind words on this image and on this gallery. I remain convinced that details are the building blocks of meaning. They carry symbols that signify ideas, such as in this image. I am honored to see my quote regarded as highly as one by Ansel Adams. You might also be interested in looking at this same door knocker from another vantage point. My friend, pbase photographer Tim May, was shooting along with me on this day, and here is his own wonderful view of detail on this door knocker. Enjoy:http://www.pbase.com/mityam/image/54959246

Guest		27-Jan-2006 17:18
to me the most incrongrous touch (my eyes can not stop to watch at this element) is the opposition tears painted and hilarious sun mouth; all the "ground" around with its beatiful texture adds more to the whole beauty but I am concentrated on this opposition PS. this section is spectacular, it was the first I visited before realizing the vastity of your cyber-book Phil and I was really attracted by the first sentence presenting the section "details are building blocks of meaning". One of these days I may substitute one of my preferred signature by A. Adams "There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer." with your sentence. :-) Most of my photo could belong to this category of expression.

Phil Douglis		17-Nov-2005 02:52
Thanks, Kal. The white eyes are blank eyes, which to me represent the eyes of the blind. It weeps, yet also enigmatically smiles. The image would be just as at home in my "Opposites and Contradictions" gallery as it is here in my gallery on detail. And yes, it is one of those images that asks questions and demands answers of the viewer, and thereby stimulates the imagination. Everyone will apply a context of their choosing, and come away with their own stories. We can only wonder what the person who painted that knocker intended to say. Thanks again, Kal, for coming back to this image. I fully expect to hear a lot more about it from my viewers over the coming months. It's that kind of picture.

Kal Khogali		17-Nov-2005 01:47
What I saw Phil was that the eyes themselves were filled white....the tears I fealt would have fallen alone. But here is the thing, I didn't even think at the time I wrote the below, why is it white and not red? It was an instant reaction...this image isn't sad to me, it is sinister...a smiling crying face? maybe, witchcraft? maybe, all things become possible....as you always say, we bring our own context to the images we see.

Phil Douglis		16-Nov-2005 22:47
A grisly interpretation, but quite apt, given the history of Mexico, and the cruelty practiced over the centuries, first by the Aztecs, then by the Spaniards, and finally by Mexican upon Mexican in a long and brutal series of civil wars.

Kal Khogali		16-Nov-2005 15:38
As though in the act of closure the eyes are gouged out never to see again. Emperors and pharoahs once did it....the secrets are now eternal.

Phil Douglis		12-Nov-2005 20:06
Thanks, Mikel, for adding these ideas about the symbolic closed door. I thought of the door as simply adding aged context. But you take it further, and see the door as a closure on happiness. The sun now weeps, the door is closed, the place is dead. Thanks for this observation.

Guest		12-Nov-2005 17:28
it is realy an icongruous image, usually we give the iconography of hapyness to the sun figure, but in this case it is criyng, why? I agree quite well with the argument you post, but perhaps I wold change a few things to it as the impression that it gave me. The old door gives me the feeleng of a yxtaposition in the feelengs that the sun my mean (without tears) and the meenen of the door it self. For me it is like that door is closed long time ago as well as the inhabitants of the building are gone too. A place were once there was hapiness (a human value) now is empty, dead.

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