25-JUN-2009
Parliament Chamber, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2009
The British Columbia Parliament was not in session the day we visited Victoria, and an iron gate was barring entrance to the chamber. I found this gate to be more visually interesting than the chamber itself. It runs across a mosaic floor featuring a rhythmic flow of decorative scrollwork. The bars themselves, along with stylized wrought iron maple leaves at the bottom, rhythmically repeat themselves as they marched across my frame. The rich red carpet adds a lush note to the scene, but the key to the image (no pun intended) is the golden lock that breaks the rhythms and binds the two halves of the gate together.
25-JUN-2009
Rotunda, Parliament Building, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, 2009
I use my frame and vantage point to bisect the dome itself here, and call attention instead to the repeating flow of half circles, and the wonderfully ornate edges that are full of repeating embellishments. Although I’ve abstracted the scene, I set it into motion – its like a giant machine full of gears that somehow manages to work together. Just as a government should!
08-APR-2009
Desert wind, Saguaro National Park, Arizona, 2009
As I made this image at sunset, a strong desert wind was blowing, causing the slender plants in front of me to lean forward, just as the oncoming cloud in the sky seems to be doing. I made many images of the fragile and transitory relationship between this cloud and those desert plants, and this one had just the right rhythmic flow to it. The main cloud does not overlap any of the plants, keeping just the right spacing above the tiny buds that blow in the wind. The warm bands of color that illuminate the background and paint the clouds pink is essential to meaning as well. The color gives life and vitality to the wind and helps the image speak its piece.
12-APR-2009
Keep walking, Nogales, Arizona, 2009
The advertising poster, promoting Johnnie Walker liquor with the slogan “keep walking,” featured the striding legs of its trademark figure. I placed it in the upper left hand corner of my frame and waited for someone to walk into the image – hoping that I would be able to catch their legs and feet in a similar position. After a number of near misses, I was able to get this man’s legs and feet in nearly perfect rhythmic alignment with the legs on the poster. Keep walking, indeed!
06-NOV-2008
Bell Tower, Tunis, Tunisia, 2008
The center island dividing Tunis’ most elegant street, Avenue Bourguiba, comes to life at night below a series of lighted decorations leading to the bell tower that dominates the scene. Framing and layering the bell tower with these ornate illuminations, I create a rhythmic progression through the image that carries the eye from the top of the frame to the bottom, and then lifting it to the top again via the tower at the end of the road.
09-NOV-2008
Arcade, The Great Mosque, Kairouan, Tunisia, 2008
Long arcades flank the courtyard of this 9th century mosque on three sides, forming long corridors that shelter visitors from the North African sun. The ancient columns that line the arcades are topped by capitals taken from other buildings, both pagan and Christian. The Moorish arches that support the roof create a rhythmic flow – I place them out of focus here in order to feature the detail on the capitals.
08-NOV-2008
Worshippers, The Great Mosque, Sousse, Tunisia, 2008
Three worshippers are already at the gate of this 9th century mosque, waiting for it to open for prayer. I originally saw only the two men at the right, and made the image because of the rhythmic repetition of their legs. When editing the image later, I noticed the third man, seated at the edge of the entrance itself. His raised knees echo the raised knees of the men at right.
05-NOV-2008
The Guard, Bardo Museum, Tunis, Tunisia, 2008
The Bardo, occupying a former palace, displays one of the world’s greatest collections of Roman art and mosaics, excavated from the ruins of Carthage, Dougga, and other Tunisian archaeology sites. I first noticed the rhythmic relationship between the leaves of the flowers in the wall decoration and the folds in the garment of the statue. I waited a few moments, and when the wary guard standing next to the statue turned to look at me, the folds in his shirt also echoed the sculpted folds, providing the image with a three way rhythmic relationship.
06-NOV-2008
Cathedral, Tunis, Tunisia, 2008
The Tunis Cathedral was built in the late 19th century during the French colonial rule of Tunisia. I frame it between the ornate lampposts from the same period that line an avenue modeled after the Champs-Elysees in Paris. Suddenly interrupting a rhythm can be just as important as maintaining a rhythm in photography, and that is what is happening in this image. Yet even while breaking the rhythmic progression of the vertical lampposts, the rounded domes on the towers of the cathedral also continue that progression by repeating the rounded shapes of the lamps, just as its vertical towers repeat the vertical lampposts.
12-SEP-2008
Burney Falls, Burney, California, 2008
A waterfall usually creates a range of rhythmic patterns as it flows from top to bottom. I isolate the section of Burney Falls that seemed to me to be the most rhythmic by zooming in on it, and then abstract it further by converting it to black and white. The image throbs with energy, the rhythmic beat of nature itself.
20-MAY-2008
Churchyard, Chinese Camp, California, 2008
The focal point of this image is the relationship of the rounded tombstone to the illuminated window on the other side of the church, appearing just above and to the right of it. The tombstone is facing a symbolically glowing arch of eternity. To support that concept, I gather into the frame as many repetitive elements as I can, particularly the three full windows that rhythmically echo the thrusts of both the tombstone and the illuminated arch. Those windows flow horizontally across the frame, and that flow, in turn, is supported by the horizontal pattern of the church siding. The vertical iron rods rising around the grave and the stone wall that supports them also flow horizontally. Meanwhile, a tree protrudes into the frame at the far left and then explodes into illuminated greenery at the upper right. The glowing light seen through the leaves repeats the glow through the window.
04-APR-2008
Legs, Cochin, India, 2008
The men napping on a wall surrounding an old tree balance each other perfectly. The foliage hanging from the tree falls on both sides of the trunk, echoing the men who doze on both sides of the same trunk. Meanwhile, the trunk has ideas of its own. Its roots break the symmetry here by breaking through the wall at lower right. This picture is really all about legs – the legs of the men are horizontal and relatively inactive, but the roots of the tree, which look like the legs of a chicken, seem very active as they claw their way out of the break in the wall.
