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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Two: Black and white travel photography – making less into more > Whitewash, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2006
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26-DEC-2006

Whitewash, Marrakesh, Morocco, 2006

This subject screamed for black and white as soon as I saw it. A man was up on a ladder, applying coats of white wash to an ancient arch – an entrance to the souks in Marrakesh’s old city. The black and white medium compliments the very nature of both task and setting – the gleaming white arch and the dark black shadows of its interior are utterly without color. I abstract the painter himself in the process. His sweater and skin tones become as monochromatic as his subject.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/200s f/4.0 at 16.1mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time26-Dec-2006 09:33:50
MakeLeica
ModelV-LUX 1
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length16.1 mm
Exposure Time1/200 sec
Aperturef/4
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.33
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis01-Aug-2007 17:27
Thanks, Ai Li for noting how black and white helps this image express it's ideas. If a man is working with white paint, on a scene defined by black shadows, what better medium than black and white photography?
AL01-Aug-2007 08:34
I like your thought of the subject screaming for b&w :-) It does accentuate the curves, the lines and the varying light beautifully.
Phil Douglis11-Mar-2007 06:31
A slice of time, indeed, Aloha. The image takes us from the present into the depths of the past. This arch has been here for hundreds of years. Scores of hands have whitewashed its curves over the centuries, and the arc of its geometry brings to mind the gear of a giant clock as well. Glad you see the layers and the blending here as well. It is an image that is literally all about black and white, isn't it?
Aloha Diao Lavina11-Mar-2007 05:22
This photograph speaks of layers--literally and interpretively. The layers of gray that blend from the white hat and wall into the shadowed black of the inner room serve to lead the eye in a syncopated but strangely smooth descent into the depths of the layers. The elements work superbly to form a dynamic slice of time.
Phil Douglis17-Jan-2007 18:41
Thanks, Tim, for noting the parellels here. Your comment made me rexamine the image in terms of the flow of white into black here. I see it now. The hat is a white curve, and so are the curves on the face of the facade. The curves on the edge of the facade move from white to gray to black. And then we have a series of black curves on the inside of the arch, carrying us into the darkness.
Tim May17-Jan-2007 16:55
There is a white to black flow in this image - the man's white hat and the white facade create a parallel flow into the darkness.
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