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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Eight: The camera as time machine: linking the past to the present > All but forgotten, Durango, Colorado, 2010
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07-JUN-2010

All but forgotten, Durango, Colorado, 2010

A quaint long-distance calling poster from the 1930s still hangs on the wall over the telephone directories in the lobby of the old Strater Hotel in Durango. Now that cell phone packages have replaced conventional long distance toll calls, the poster promoting the use of a phone as faster and cheaper than writing appears nostalgically humorous in this era of instant and constant connectivity. Just across the way stand several phone booths, originally designed for the convenience of the hotel’s visitors. Today, most of the phones that were once in them have been removed.

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Phil Douglis03-Jul-2010 21:33
You are right about the quality of light here, Iris. It is a nostalgic image, and soft, warm colors will invariably suggest the passage of time in such a photograph as this.
Iris Maybloom (irislm)03-Jul-2010 18:24
The visual absence of a phone amidst the poster and phone books provides a humorous touch to the passage of time. The warm light adds to the nostalgia.
Phil Douglis29-Jun-2010 22:40
I am sure these telephone books were published more recently than the poster above them. Those books hold a lot more numbers than existed when that fellow in the poster was shouting into his candlestick telephone. As for how current they may be, the wear and tear on their pages evident in this shot would give us a hint.
Tim May29-Jun-2010 19:36
I wonder if the phone books were current - we still do have them.
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