Doors can be a theme to tie together travel and vacation photos that remind us where we were and what we discovered, and learning to see and knowing how to photograph doors opens a vast area of subject matter for artistic photographs. We go through and past them every day, and while some are plain and functional, a huge number have character and interest that will attract and hold attention. The intense blue of this door with it’s basket of bright begonias makes an intriguing picture in itself, but it also might cause us to want to know more about its owner and what other visual treats might lie beyond it.
Some doors derive at least a part of their interest from their color and age. These two photographs are of a door on a round barn in the mid-west that has been around for more than a century, something not all that common in the U.S. It’s been repainted since the photos were taken, an act that will help preserve it but makes it much less interesting to photograph. The detail speaks of a day when as busy farmer added a hinge to keep things together and never returned for a a repair more in line with what is taught to carpenters.
While they’re not doors, arches functions as doorways and many have intriguing and artistic design, especially in older architecture. People passing through an arch helps tell us about dress and customs where the photo was taken, and the cameras tell us that this must be a popular tourist destination, and indeed it is very near the famed Ponte Vecchio of Florence. The series of arches is an example of repetition, a common and pleasing device in visual art and music. My preference is for the person closest to the camera to be entering the photograph rather than leaving it.
Being able to see beyond a door draws our attention into a picture. Do your eyes want to look through the collapsing barn and out the door on its other side? We won’t be seeing beyond the wide iron gate without an invitation. Perhaps its efficiency as a barrier prevented the owner from discovering the graffiti “artists” until their paint was long dry.
Doors can be exciting subjects but sometimes conditions are less than perfect. The next post has some solutions.
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