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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty-Nine: Creating an echo with rhythm and pattern > Monks moving on, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2008
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10-JAN-2008

Monks moving on, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2008

Moments before packing my cameras up and leaving for home, I saw these Cambodian monks heading home as well. It made an appropriate farewell image for my fifth visit to Southeast Asia. There are layers of rhythms and patterns in this image that not only carry the eye from side to side, but draw it back into the image as well. A row of posts fill the foreground, the monks occupy the middleground, and a metal fence imprinted with horizontal bars creates a rhythmic background. I like the way the umbrella at left breaks the frame, and extends the sweep of this image beyond its boundaries.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/250s f/5.6 at 88.8mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis11-Jun-2008 20:17
I am so glad you bring up the role of color in rhythmic repetition, Jenene. It is indeed at the core of this picture. We must think color, along with shape and form, when we compose our images for meaning.
JSWaters11-Jun-2008 04:01
I find the repeating colors in the image to add quite a rhythmic quality as well - with the soft green creating breathing space for all that glowing yellow and orange.
Jenene
Phil Douglis06-May-2008 19:00
Good point, Tim. Monk's are people who inhabit a very real world. You and I have often made images of them that show them as more than religious symbols. I think your own "Monk's Gallery: 2005" which you shot in Laos, is
a perfect example, particulary the waterfall bathers. (http://www.pbase.com/mityam/monks05 )
Tim May06-May-2008 18:25
As you know I have been interested in exploring myth and reality through images and one of the realities I found on our trips to asia was the fact that monks were people. I know it's obvious when you think about it. But, nevertheless it was a surprise to me. I think this picture so shows it by the back briefcase. Monks live lives in the real world, not behind temple doors.
Phil Douglis19-Jan-2008 21:03
They are -- and so are the spaces between the heads and feet.
monique jansen19-Jan-2008 10:11
Even the round umbrellas are a pattern to themselves.
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