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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Five: Using the frame to define ideas > Mounted Patrol, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005
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27-OCT-2005

Mounted Patrol, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 2005

Two policemen, wearing traditional costumes, patrol the streets and plazas of San Miguel. I use a frame within a frame to increase the illusion of depth as well as abstract the image. The policemen are riding on a street well below my level. I am standing in a raised plaza, and I frame the subjects so that they will fit between two ornate posts. The first frame – the edges of the photograph itself -- set the stage. It is the second frame, created by the dark plaza, the two posts, and the horizontal decoration on the background wall, that makes the riders recede into the distance and implies depth. The deeply shadowed plaza in the foreground also abstracts the horses by removing their legs. In seeing less, we leave room for imagination to enjoy more.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
1/500s f/7.1 at 20.5mm iso80 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time27-Oct-2005 03:42:00
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ30
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length20.5 mm
Exposure Time1/500 sec
Aperturef/7.1
ISO Equivalent80
Exposure Bias-1 1/3
White Balance (10)
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis20-Jun-2006 04:59
The possibilities grabbed me as well, Jack. Whenever I find a framing device that can help the image function as expression, as well as aesthetically, I use it to whatever advantage I can. In this case, I get double value out of this frame within the frame. It gives me more abstraction, as well as another layer to increase depth perception.
Guest 20-Jun-2006 02:39
This one grabs me, probably due to the color and architecture!! As you probably said the framing is all!!
Phil Douglis12-Nov-2005 20:34
I am glad you raised the point about the electrical or phone cables in this picture. We ordinarily think of such things as distractions, since they usually have nothing to do with the picture. But I found that the presence of utility wires in Mexico was very much a part of my pictures. They help express the character of the place. They are an essential part of the Mexican landscape. (Just as are the skewed, tilted, and leaning structures that Alister felt the urge to align in my shot athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/52107740 ) I feel that exposed wires, pipes, tilted buildings and slanted streets are an essential part of the story I am telling here, and have no desire to eliminate or align them.
Phil Douglis12-Nov-2005 20:09
Thanks, Mikel, for translating the plaque on City Hall. And for making that plaque a player in this picture.
I knew the building was involved in the 1810 Allende uprising but did not connect it to the costumes of the policemen as you have done, thereby creating additional contrast between the past and present day San Miguel.
Guest 12-Nov-2005 17:35
Ok, there are also some electric or telephone cables... ;)
Guest 12-Nov-2005 17:35
What I find funny of this picture is that it brings you to the past, to the times that Allende was arround, specially if you read the conmemorative plate about the first independent Cityhall that was rised by the revolucionaries in that building. Adding to it the two police man wearing a traditional dressing it all ends up framed in the past, paradoxally the only ourday's reference is the plate that gives us a whole other meeneng to the photo and retourns us to the past.
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