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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twelve: Using color to express ideas > Approach of the guard, Toksugung Palace, Seoul, Korea, 2006
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17-MAR-2006

Approach of the guard, Toksugung Palace, Seoul, Korea, 2006

Marching to the beat of drums and gongs, a contingent of new guards, dressed in brilliantly colored costumes, passes through the gates of the palace. They wear brilliant yellow costumes, and led by a man wearing red, blue and yellow. They march behind yellow and red flags. Everything in this image except for the palace gates and the softly focused trees in the distance is a primary color. The bright but flat lighting of a thinly overcast day is ideal for bringing such colors by eliminating variations in light and shadow.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
1/200s f/5.6 at 51.3mm iso80 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time17-Mar-2005 21:34:50
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ30
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length51.3 mm
Exposure Time1/200 sec
Aperturef/5.6
ISO Equivalent80
Exposure Bias
White Balance (10)
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis06-Dec-2007 22:51
You've got it, Vera! Always think of the viewer as sitting on your shoulders -- you give them eyes, and make them see as you see, stimulating their imaginations in the process.
Guest 06-Dec-2007 12:52
Great advice. It is as if they need to be looking at something so the viewer of the photograph can imagine they are looking at it too, making it more interesting in their mind. Never thought of that.
Vera
Phil Douglis06-Dec-2007 03:35
I am always shooting people from behind. It abstracts them, and it puts the viewer in their place. If you look into image, Vera, you will be become the guy leading the guards with that sword, and then you will become those guys in the yellow hats, too. Keep shooting people from behind, but be sure to relate them to something -- those yellow flags up front are just as important here as the marching soldiers.
Guest 06-Dec-2007 01:32
I am amazed at how you can take a picture of the back of someone's head, making it interesting. I have tried this and have deleted I think all of them. I have a vision of an RCMP officer taken from behind with the stetson, but I have not taken one I am happy with yet. Keep working on that one.
Vera
Phil Douglis05-Sep-2006 23:16
I am always fascinated by how my images are perceived, Christine. To see them at first as chairs and tables at a cafe is wonderful, because the more you study the image, the more it changed for you. My guess is that the hats and colors are so unusual, and therefore incongruous, that found it a very unfamiliar subject. As for the yellow color, it is a primary color, and in former times, such colors are considered symbolically important. Look at the Queens guards in London -- they are usually dressed in bright red. Guards usually today dress in military colors -- khaki, or in more more formal situations, dark blue.
Christine P. Newman05-Sep-2006 22:10
An interesting procession that my eye did not see right away. I thought they were chairs and tables at a cafe... I don't know now how I could have seen it that way, but I see hats now! This is quite a guard - yellow is not a colour that would be usually used for the guards here.
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