Another Water Tower

[Walter Glover]

I have been back and shot this again with a shorter lens. I feel this is a bit too much the heroic portrait and I hope the newer approach will set the structure more in context.

[Maris]

Architects must have welcomed water tower commissions. "Another Water Tower" is round but features square Doric columns and an encircling row of rectangular Dentils above the arches. A neat bit of design tension. Nice picture too, Walter. The whiffs of cloud and the wind blurred branches counterpoint the solidity of the structure.

[Walter Glover]

Well, here is the wder view — I do like context.

Another change is that I used my belovèd Diafine to develop the FP4+ with minimal agitation and 3 minutes in Part A and 3 minutes in Part B.

[Maris]

Walter, you must have been standing in the same place for the wide water-tower shot as for the narrow view. The relationship between the arches, pillars, and peripherals is the same. This illustrates something that I've told unbelieving students: composition is determined by where you stand, framing is determined by the focal length you choose. Framing is not composition. The two water-towers are a master-class illustrating the principle.

[Walter Glover]

Thanks Maris,

The initial shot was with a 120mm lens and the revision with a 90mm. The revised shot was also taken form a point on the radial axis of the first shot from about 20 feet further back.

You analogy of procedures and terminology (opinion) is in line with my own.

In fact, I invariably determine point of view with the camera still in its trunk. There was a time I trotted out a Linhof Universal Finder to determine focal length but no longer have a need to and so the Deutche Looken-Peeper has long since left my realm.

Cheers,

[Walter Glover]

I might add Maris, that serendipity played a hand in going wider apart from my usual yearning for context. I find a partial left/right mirror image framing the tower. The forms of the footpath and walking figure on the right are echoed in the form of the tree trunk surrounded by foliage on the left. That is the sort of reward that I found absent in the initial rendering.