Tulips and Tourny fountain in front of the Parliament building in Quebec City in spring 2023.
This photo taken in May 2023 shows the tulips planted in front of the Parliament Building in Quebec City, near the wall surrounding Old Quebec. The Tourny Fountain can be seen in the center, but it seems to suffer from inadequate water pressure. Indeed, we have seen much more spectacular water jets with this fountain.
Fontaine de Tourny and the Quebec National Assembly building.
The fontaine de Tournyand the parliament building in Quebec City are often photographed separately. This can give very good results. However, the visual impact can be increased by combining the two architectural styles in close proximity in the same photo.
By paying attention to the photographic composition, I sought a balance while creating a tension between the two works. In the scene above, the fountain and the Parliament building appear to be of similar height. The vertical axis of the center of the Parliament tower is about the same distance from the right side of the photo as the vertical axis of the fountain is from the left side. This is close to the rule of thirds, but not dogmatically so. Both works are deliberately framed tightly.
Other elements contribute to the interest of the scene. First of all, each architectural work has a specific color that is well marked and luckily the colors are almost complementary. Still on the subject of color, I chose to take the photo during the “blue hour”, that time of day just before dark when a very soft light illuminates the landscape for a few more minutes.
Finally, the water jets and the people in the background add a little dynamism to an essentially static subject.
