photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment
Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fourteen: Expressing the meaning of buildings and structures > Golden Tower, The Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, 2004
previous | next
27-JUN-2004

Golden Tower, The Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, 2004

Tibet is one of the most remote and thus poorest provinces in today's China, yet its history is emblazoned in its thousand-room Potala Palace, former residence of the Dalai Lamas, Tibet's religious and secular rulers since 1645. With the present Dalai Lama living in exile in India, the Palace has become a vast museum, featuring dozens of chapels, gold and jewel encrusted tombs of deceased Dalai Lamas, and a mandala made of 20,000 pearls. Photos of the interior are forbidden, so photographers must settle for external details, such as this golden tower, which rises into the deep blue skies so common at 12,000 feet above sea level. I use color and detail here to symbolize both the historical and monetary value of this incredible building. I build my image around the diagonal thrusts and rhythms of the double roof, leading to the gilded, ornately decorated tower, topped with the lotus, symbol of the Buddhist faith.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/1250s f/6.3 at 15.8mm full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Phil Douglis13-Jan-2005 18:08
Thanks, River King, for your kind words. I am glad my pictures have helped you to understand your own purpose and style as a photographer. If they can help you get greater satisfaction our of your own imagery, all the better. That's why I post them. In the end, every photographer speaks in their own voice and for their own purposes. I am simply sharing my own voice and my own purposes -- based on a lifetime in photography and photographic education -- in the hopes that others might find both knowledge and inspiration.

I hope that my galleries will continue to help you define your own purpose and style as a photographer. The feelings I express are my feelings -- it is my way of sharing myself with the world. Thank you for enjoying them, and learning from them as well.

Phil
Guest 13-Jan-2005 09:26
and, thank you! :)
Guest 13-Jan-2005 09:26
Hi, Phil, after going through many of your images and intros, and those comments we have exchanged, I now know what differences are between our styels. Your style are expressive... you use many different ways, such as using color, compositions to express your own feelings. Your built the feeling through your photos. My style, however, is not expressive at my end. I always feel that the nature itself has their own feeling, and my job is to find and capture it. I don't necessrily have my own feeling to express through the photos. My work is more of capturing, than expressing. I don't know if I am making sence here. :)

Comparing my photos to yours, your photos have shown deeper meanings. For mine, many times, in many people's opinions, beside the beauty of the nature, nothing more comes out. I somewhat disagree those opinions though, because I believe that if we can connect with nature, then we can also see something more expressive than just the beauty itself.

I am at the stage right now defining what my style is. Your galleries have given me a very valuable reference. It certainly gives me a lot of joy to go through your pictures and to read the feeling from each picture, then compare to the intros to see if matches your feelings. By commenting your gallries has helped me greatly to learn how to express my feeling in words. I didn't like to describe my photos at all, I often time just let readers to read and feel the hidden passion by themselves.

I can also tell that your way of using different techniques to express your feelings were based on a long time experience. I can and have learned a lot from your work without even read your intros. With connecting myself to your feeling, this learning course has been very pleasant and thoughtful.

Phil Douglis13-Jan-2005 00:05
Thanks, River King, for responding so positively to this image. As for your comments on my intentions here, I value your suggestions. When visiting a country, even for a short time, I do a lot of research before I go. I talk to people who have been there. On a previous visit to Nepal, I spoke with people who had fled from Tibet so they could practice their beliefs freely. During my visit to Tibet, I again spoke to people about their lives, their hopes and their dreams. And so I formed my own opinion on the subject. My image represents that opinion. Mine, and mine alone.
As I said in my answer to Jen, not everyone in China would agree with me. It is not a black and white issue. And as you say, I am but an outsider. I did not attempt to speak for anyone but myself, and that is what I did in this image.
I am glad that this photograph, and my views on it, have brought you both pleasure and thought.
Guest 12-Jan-2005 20:23
Hi, Phil,

This is a very beautiful picture. The roof looks like painting, and the dark warm color tone make picture very peaceful, and very thoughtful. The elements in this picture make me to respect the place already, that's the power of this picture.

I read your comments about the feeling. Honestly I never been to Tibet, never spoke to anyone who is from Tibet, so I'm not sure what their real feeling is. Lack of reglious freedom is such a pitty in China, and the Chinese culture has limited many freedom, including freedom of arts. Many times they are instructured by rules, and they can hardly jump out of those rules to have more of creative sides because the rules told them what is good or bad...

But I would be very cautious to express feeling for someone... I don't know how well you know the situation in Tibet and how true you feel about people's feeling there, so I really cannot comment on your feeling. What I am saying is that my experience tells me that it takes very long time to truely know the culture and someone's feeling. Most time we are just outsider and we have some feeling that's from our background.

Without talking about your feeling in words, your picture is still very powerful. At least it makes me respect to this creation and to those who build such a beatiful temple. I also give praise to you to capture it so many people can see it...
Phil Douglis08-Jan-2005 17:38
Thank you, Jen, for coming to understand my point of view here and appreciating the reasons for that cloudy sky. My visit to Tibet was bittersweet. I saw them as a people whose god has been taken away from them, and their country as well. My heart went out to them. It is a tribute to your open mind and kind heart that you understand my picture and feel the sadness as I did. Not everyone in China would agree with you and me. It is a sensitive political issue, but at its core it is an issue based on human rights, not political rights. Everyone deserves to feel as if they are free. The people of Tibet do not. It is as simple as that. If this image can trigger such thoughts as these, I will be very happy. Thank you, Jen, for opening your mind and heart to this image. That is why you saw what you saw, and felt what you felt.
Jennifer Zhou08-Jan-2005 15:06
I was standing on my personal ground when reading this picture, and I find you are expressing rather the feelings of Tibet people. I don't have any religion so I tend to look for my own freedom from that sky, but for Tibet people all things serve for their religion. And I could totally understand how they feel with their GOD forced to exile to another country. They are really living under that "cloudy sky" all the years.

Wow..Phil, how wise you are to wait for the cloud coming into your frame and I agree with you on this totally!

Now I understand why when I first saw this picture I felt a bit sadness, that is in fact part of the story here.

Jen
Phil Douglis07-Jan-2005 18:48
Thanks, Jen, for being the first to recognize the meaning I've expressed in this photograph. I have been able to trigger a series of thoughts in your imagination that have allowed you to grasp the meaning of the design of the Potala Palace. I believe that the builders of this palace had very much the same symbolic meaning in mind as you do. Religious architecture has always been based on spiritual beliefs, and what I have done here is to attempt to abstract the essence of those beliefs in this image.

I find it fascinating that your only criticism of this picture is your displeasure with those clouds in the sky. You say the deep blue skies overhead represent the world outside Tibet, which is less religious, full of possibilities and freedom. I think the people who worship in this temple would argue that freedom and possibilities come to them from their religion, not from the outside world. As such, those clouds in the sky become very important. Clouds, as you know, often represent meaning in photography. I waited for those clouds to enter my frame so I could contrast them to the startling clarity of the deep blue sky over the 12,000 foot high city.

Tibet, Jen, has been living under symbolic "cloudy skies" since Tibet's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, was forced into exile by Mao's armies in 1959. For the last 45 years, Tibet has been part of China, yet it yearns to be a free and independent country. You said it all, Jen, when you said that you want to see a clear sky, rather than a cloudy one because you feel a if your "heart is covered with something that that I can't take a good, deep, fresh breath." That, Jen, is how Tibetans feel too. And that is why i put those clouds in this picture.
Jennifer Zhou07-Jan-2005 09:04
Dear Phil,

It is indeed an incredible building and you made an incredible image!

You organize this picture with three layers which represent three different things to me, and you use three primary colors which work best both as meanings and as form.

To me, the bouble red roof reprensents a large number of believers who is the foundation of this religion. And the dark red is the color of a deeply devoted heart. The golden lotus tower is a symbol of power. Comparing to the wooden roof, the tower is much precious, and it is on the far top that nomal people can never "reach" it. The third layer is the deep bule sky, to me it represents the world outside Tibet, which is less religious, full of possibility and freedom. But I really want to see a clear sky than a cloudy one, it is like my heart is covered with something that I can't take a good, deep, fresh breath. Maybe you have different interpretation for the sky and I really want to know what you think!

Jen
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment