Friday, September 28, 2012

321 Triptych

click photo to enlarge
My blog post on the last day of 2009 featured three photographs presented in the form of a triptych. For anyone who doesn't know, a triptych is either a single picture divided into three parts but joined together or three different pictures joined together. In each case they are presented as a whole. I first came across the term when studying Renaissance painting. Often the reredos of an altar was in the form of a painted triptych of the Crucifixion, Nativity or Annunciation, that could be folded up when the altar wasn't in use. The Victorians made the religious triptych fashionable again, and they are still being produced today in one form or another for secular as well as church purposes.

My first triptych was intensely secular: how else can you describe photographs of the detergent and grease left on the roasting tray as I cleaned it after the Christmas meal? The same can be said of today's photograph(s) - my second foray into the world of the triptych. I'd taken a photograph of the number on a new sign that indicated the floor of a building that I was in. As I ascended the stairs in the stairwell I discovered that a different colour had been used for the walls of each floor. So, with the idea of a triptych in mind I made sure I got a shot of the numbers for the floors of the first, second and third storeys. The glass or plastic that the signs were made from reflected the windows and stairs, and I made sure to include these reflections. What appealed to me about these images was the high gloss and the sharp, clear delineation of the numbers contrasted with the out of focus softness ofthe reflections. The sequence - either ascending or descending - seemed the obvious way to sequence them.

photograph and text © Tony Boughen

Photo 1 (i.e. 3!)
Camera: Lumix LX3
Mode: Aperture Priority
Focal Length: 7.9mm (37mm/35mm equiv.)
F No: f2.4
Shutter Speed: 1/50
ISO: 100
Exposure Compensation: -0.33 EV
Image Stabilisation: On