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Cecilia Lim | all galleries >> Galleries >> urban landscape > Cement Factory
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8 October 2003 Malaysia

Cement Factory

I made this image in the mid-afternoon from a beach on Langkawi Island, a destination popular with holiday-makers looking for beaches and nature. It was shot against the sunlight that was reflecting fiercely off the surface of the ocean. A neutral density filter fixed the over-exposure of the sky and gave the clouds a heavy, oppressive look that I wanted to express. But the water was blown. I regretted not having taken 2 exposures - one metered for the water and one for the sky so that I could recombine them for a balanced exposure. Technically, this image is a disaster, but I've grown to like the effect of the blown highlights of the water. It gives a harsh intensity to the mood of the image, further stressing the unfriendliness of industrial impact on our environment. What do you think?


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Cecilia Lim28-Aug-2006 11:41
Thanks Cecilia W and Phil for your wonderful feedback on this image! The ancient mountains of Langkawi Island offer some of the most amazing pre-historic looking backdrops for photography. And yet amidst all its beauty, it's also home to a thriving cement factory that exploits the mountains for its raw materials. It was an opportune time that I arrived at this scene when the backlight conditions allowed to me to shoot almost in silhouette, stripping away its colours to create a surreal and grey, lifeless environment.

Cecilia W, I loved your interpretation of the boulders in the sea - how they appeared like marine creatures to you. I can see how their indistinguishable shapes got your imagination running, further seeding the ideas of surrealism and fantasy of this strange world. The reality is that it is just a cement factory on an island, but it thrills me that I am able to make an image that goes beyond describing what it is, and instead offer a platform that titillates your mind and emotions.

And thanks Phil for endorsing the effectiveness of the blown highlights here. There are so many rules in photography, but I'm beginning to learn through your feedback and examples that they can &should be broken - especially if doing so helps to contribute to the meaning and expression of an image. You've often said how abstraction lends to expression and provocative thinking, and I can see now that the abstraction of the white sea has done so here. Not only does it look like it's out of this world, but it radiates like pure radioactive energy, intensifying the idea of a hostile industrial environment.
Phil Douglis25-Aug-2006 05:18
Ceci beat me to the punch on this, but I can second her motion on the surreal, almost prehistoric juxtaposition here of the work of man vs the work of nature. You need not apologize for the blown highlights if they work to express an idea. The water seems to be on fire, unbearably hot and harsh. Forget everything you ever learned, Celia, about the "rules" of photography. The blown-highlights police can blow their whistles at this image all day, but they can't diminish its accomplishments. Does my blown out sun flashing over the wreckage of Hiroshima athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/58759156 hurt my point? Hell No. It makes it.
Guest 25-Aug-2006 04:02
What a surreal and amazing picture, like something out of the distant future, from another planet. The fore and backgrounds dominate and the factory feels incidental. The water appears full of some kind of marine creatures, and the presence of the nearby machinery gives the sense of a time to come so industrialized that the animals have no where else to be. It feels like a prophecy, but it's also quite dreamlike.