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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Two: Travel Incongruities > Containerama, Gatun Locks, Panama Canal, 2003
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18-DEC-2003

Containerama, Gatun Locks, Panama Canal, 2003

The spectacle of a huge container ship making it’s way through the Panama Canal with barely an inch to spare makes a perfect subject for scale incongruity. I cropped the scene boldly in my frame, showing only a part of the ships hull and a fraction of the containers piled high on its decks. In the lower right hand corner of this picture a ramp rises toward the ship, and three workers seem to be following along in its wake. By comparing that heap of containers to the three fellows ambling along behind this ship, I try to express the importance of the canal itself, a vital seaway that moves 200 million tons of through its locks every year. This mass of containers is just a tiny fraction of that enormous payload.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/125s f/4.0 at 28.8mm hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time18-Dec-2003 20:14:04
MakeCanon
ModelPowerShot G5
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length28.8 mm
Exposure Time1/125 sec
Aperturef/4
ISO Equivalent
Exposure Bias
White Balance (-1)
Metering Modematrix (5)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Program
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis28-Jul-2006 23:33
And that, Emi, is what happens in all images. We see with two eyes, but a camera only has one.
Guest 28-Jul-2006 11:33
I feel like the men in the picture are going from a 3D world to a 2D world.
Phil Douglis25-Jan-2006 19:02
Antonio -- an image such as this could tell different stories with different crops. It all depends on what we are trying to say. I was expressing sheer size and scale, so I cropped it this way. If we wanted to savor the textures and colors of the containers, we would crop it as you suggest here. There are no right or wrong ways to crop -- it all depends upon the point we are trying to express.
Guest 25-Jan-2006 17:37
an additional fruitful crop here could be one just depicting the containers with right in front perspective enjoying their colorful texture; better with insert man for scale of course
Phil Douglis24-Jun-2005 02:55
Thanks for pointing out the slight tilt and the scrap of sky here, Dimitri. Both have been remedied. As for your other suggestions and comments, I can only repeat what I stated earlier in response to Mikel's comment. I respect your view of this image, but I do not agree with any of it. This photograph provides an excellent teaching example for the principle of scale incongruity. That is why it works, and why I posted it here.
dimitri 22-Jun-2005 12:23
Sorry, I'll be going against the wind on this one.. first of all I agree with Mikel, without the caption I wouldn't have known it was a ship, or a canal .. it just looks like a pile of (lopsided) containers. Yes, captions are important, but here the photograph is a poor relative to the caption.
Second, it is a bit too busy and fussy for my taste.. the strip of sky in the upper left corner constantly begs for my attention, the other three men by the guardhouse are diluting the strng effect of the walkers, the angle of the containersand the door of the lock spoils the effect the hull would have had..

dimitri
Phil Douglis23-Dec-2004 19:01
Thanks, Mikel, for pointing out the critical importance of the caption to this picture. Since my roots, as yours, are in photojournalism, I usually intend my photographs to work together with words. I try to offer context in words that do what the image cannot do -- offering background information that can enhance meaning. Of course, here in the cyberbook, my words also function as instructional text in expressive photography. Some people might think that an image is somehow faulty if it requires words for comprehension. Nothing could be further from the truth. An effectively expressive image can convey meaning on its own, yet that meaning can be broadened and deepened with accompanying text that adds significant context. Each medium works separately, each doing what the other can't.
Guest 23-Dec-2004 17:09
again a good scale incongruence, as for hiding part of the ship it gives an enourmous feeleng specialy compared to these 3 man walking up to it. Indeed it gives you the notion of how mighty the channel is if you rad the caption, that in this case it aports very significant information, otherwise I wold have thought that it was any cargo port in any country of the world, and ofcourse, without showing the hawl of the vessel you wold not be able to see that it is a boat with this perspective and as such wold have errased a very important information part of the photo.
Phil Douglis01-Dec-2004 23:50
You have every right to read an image in any form you wish, Clara. In this case, your interpretation strikes gold.
You see the staggering scale incongruity, and relate it to the sheer scale of human life, yet you also think of the haves and the have-nots of this world, and how the ultimate answers to our problems rest in the creativity of the human mind. I salute you for once again extending the meaning of one of my images far beyond my own expectations. It is proof of two things -- the effectiveness of my image as expression, and your own wonderfully rich imagination. I've struck gold finding you as a viewer and critic, Clara!
Guest 01-Dec-2004 23:23
Phil, when I see an image I tend to isolate it from its title or description, then I read the attached words and interpret again. I can't help but prefer to contemplate images without words first and get the main impression from it. In this case I see the subject, which is human and industrial at the same time, and the contrast between both, which is something I like in photography. The huge containers all piled upon each other give me a wonderful understanding of our modern life; how we trade things in such amazing amounts, since we are so many on this planet. Still, this talks of the prosper societies in contrast with third-fourth world with little access to the goods we enjoy. Men in the photo are so small and -however- man is the mind that moves matter.
nut 08-Nov-2004 20:20
Yes, exactly.
Phil Douglis08-Nov-2004 18:35
This image is based on scale incongruity, Nut -- comparing the small size of the men to the large size of the ship. However I have also used abstraction. Not for incongruity, but to imply the big size of the ship by cropping in on it, showing you only a small part of it, and letting your imagination do the rest.

Together, the scale incongruity and the use of abstraction does capture the essence of this canal.
nut 08-Nov-2004 14:53
So this one is an incongruous in term of mass (including in scale incongruity), right?
It's not an incongruous in term of abstract, right? Because you didn't take away information such as three guy here. So it shouldn't be an abstract incongruity. You want
to add them in this photo, it mean they are important for you to express the scale incongruity, right? Mass and number are scale. You used the scale incongruity to express
the importance of this canal. So this is the way to highlight the essence of this canal.
nut 06-Nov-2004 07:14
I admitted it.
Phil Douglis05-Nov-2004 19:24
Incongruity created by abstraction such as I use here does cause to think of more than what we see. It uses the power of implication, Nut, to stimulate our imaginations as viewers.
nut 05-Nov-2004 06:17
Abstract incongruity.

Scale incongruity shown me how big of Panama canel. Abstract incongruity gave me a reason
why I must think more than what I saw.
Phil Douglis22-Oct-2004 20:10
Hard to say, Zebra. I like the triple abstraction here -- the men have their backs to us, and so too, does the ship. And only a tiny part of the ship at that. If we were to see those men walking towards us, we would lose some of the abstraction.
Guest 22-Oct-2004 19:08
The three men give me a direction.My eyes follow them towards the boat board.
Sometimes I think,if the three men walk down,not walk up,maybe the picture would be in mess and no direction.
Piotr Siejka10-Jun-2004 18:57
Fantastic.
Phil Douglis02-Jun-2004 20:06
You are right, Dirk. If not for those three people, I would never have bothered making this image. I saw them coming, conceived the picture in my mind, and then just waited to them to appear in the right place in my frame.
Guest 02-Jun-2004 14:35
Great composition and a fine image. Very well seen to include the 3 people there otherwise it would have been a quite uninteresting scene and now you have a very interesting image.
Guest 13-Mar-2004 09:29
this is a great gallery.
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