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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Five: Using the frame to define ideas > Sentry, Mohammed V Mausoleum, Rabat, Morocco, 2006
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14-DEC-2006

Sentry, Mohammed V Mausoleum, Rabat, Morocco, 2006

This tomb commemorates the Sultan and King who enabled Morocco to achieve independence. Built in 1969, it’s four marble doorways are fronted by slender columns of Carrara marble, and songs of holy praise carved in Maghrebi script. A caped sentry stands guard over each entrance. In this image, I frame one of the sentries between four different hues of marble. Boxed in, his cloak still blows in the wind.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/200s f/5.6 at 36.5mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis19-Jan-2008 04:20
I don't look for "unique" ways to make my pictures, Vera. I am not interested in how a picture "looks," but rather what it says. All my vantage points and framing is dictated by purpose. I wanted express the pressure of the job, yet its freedom, too. By boxing him into those marble slabs, I express pressure. And by pressing the shutter as the wind lifted his cape, I express freedom.
Guest 03-Jan-2008 19:02
Your vantage point makes this picture for me. It could have been so easily just another tourist picture, front on of a guard but you walked around looking for a unique way of looking at the scene.
Vera
Phil Douglis17-Jan-2007 20:44
The cape drew my eye as well, Tim. Its movement contrasts, as you say, to the rigidity of his stance and surroundings. It also symbolizes the breath of life in a place honoring the dead.
Tim May17-Jan-2007 20:39
The cape does it for me - there is so much rigidity here, even the human is trying to be rigid - but the cape reminds us that even stone wears away with the wind.
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