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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirteen: Bringing Fresh Visions to Tired Clichés > Sunset cliché? Somewhere off Land’s End, England 2004
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25-AUG-2004

Sunset cliché? Somewhere off Land’s End, England 2004

When shooting sunsets, I usually try to capture their effect on other things, rather just than shoot a sunset itself, which is one of the most common clichés in photography. I can even tolerate a cliché sunset if it incorporates a context such as an impressive ship or mountain range in the distance, or a powerful, abstract anchor in the foreground. I’ll also exempt lovely landscapes enhanced by the afterglow of a setting sun from my list of clichés – because such images are not about the sun itself, but rather the colorful effect of the setting sun.

Just shooting a setting sun because it is “pretty” is a tired excuse for an expressive image. We’ve seen those sunsets over and over again. Must we make still another one? So why did I even bother picking up my camera to shoot this sunset from the balcony of a cruise ship at sea somewhere off Lands End, England? What makes this particular sunset picture a non-cliché? Because I think it tells a story that appeals to the imagination. A tale about a wispy cloud that just wouldn’t give up. It kept clinging to this setting sun all the way down to the sea, reluctant to let it go and watch it finally slip below the horizon. That little cloud, which resembled an artist’s casual brush stroke, is good enough to make this into a story telling image and avoid the cliché. Yet just as this sunset was about to touch the horizon, something else happened. The round sun suddenly became an oval sun – with the little cloud splitting it into yellow and orange halves. It’s obviously a trick of nature, an illusion – since I’ve never noticed an oval sun before. The only thing I could do was to hold my shot until there was maximum tension -- created by the smallest possible amount of space – between the sun and the water. I exposed on the sun with my spot meter to turn the water black and give the sun and sky gain maximum color intensity. And I made sure that I did not split the picture exactly in half with the horizon. There is more water here than sky, which avoids that static, balanced look that plagues so many sunset shots. Adding the sun-warping illusion, the little cloud that wouldn’t give up, and my own photographic decisions together, I feel was able to lift this sunset out of the cliché department and put it into my keeper file. Do you agree? Is this a story-telling picture or just another sunset cliché? Please comment. Thanks.

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Phil Douglis26-Aug-2009 20:55
This image continues to draw interesting comments. Thanks, Alyda and Cyndy -- particularly for noting that thought goes into my images. I feel that any picture worth taking is also worth a bit of thought as to its function and meaning. One of the major reasons why we see so many cliche travel photos is because the photographers made them as a ritualistic response instead of thinking through what they were trying to say with the picture.
Guest 18-Apr-2008 00:49
I so enjoy your insightful comments. You put much thought into your images before snapping the shutter. A good lesson to learn.
Alida Thorpe16-Apr-2006 11:24
Beautiful sunset gallery. One of the best I've seen on PBase! :~)
Phil Douglis18-Jan-2006 22:24
Thanks, Mia, for this comment. Don't worry. I am still alive. I am just back from two weeks of intensive wildlife photography in Zambia and am working on a new gallery. Until I finish it, I won't have time to respond to any of the wonderful comments that are being left under my images. I hope to get it posted at the end of January. See you then. Phil
Mia 18-Jan-2006 18:36
Phil, I love your first comment, the reply to Tim. May I ask you to never feel embarrassed because of your wonderful imagination - it reveals so much of your "human" and fascinating side without having to refer to "technical" terminology. It was a very refreshing and solid comment.
P.S. I did not see any sign of life from you for quite a while. I hope you are ok.
SimplePhotography 19-Jul-2005 20:36
I've seen your comment Phil, thank you for taking the time to write it.
Phil Douglis18-Jul-2005 20:46
Thank you for your comments on this image. I left a brief comment on your image, suggested a greater emphasis on human values and incongruity. It is not technique that is lacking, but rather an emphatic idea.
SimplePhotography 15-Jul-2005 01:22
Now what I would really like, is your comment on the picture you can find when you click on this URL:

http://www.pictureparking.com/show_picture.php?pid=27666

I'm not sure what to think of it. It's definitely out of the ordinary, and that could mean just as well that its composition is just plainly bad.

I wanted to bring three things together: nature (the grass silhouettes and the sihouette of the tree on the left), the urban element (silhouettes of buildings and electricity cables in the air), and a non-cliché sunset (you don't see the sun, but it must be there somewhere).
SimplePhotography 15-Jul-2005 01:16
Usually, sunset photographs over the sea show a glowing line of light and shining wave tops, whereas the water in this photograph tells me it will be dark very shortly. That alone makes it an original photograph to me.
Phil Douglis01-Dec-2004 01:41
Thanks, Vera, for these observations on what is and what is not a cliche. I don't know if it would be productive to debate the fine points of what you say here, because I think we are each coming from a different place. You are talking apples and I am talking about oranges. You are defining cliches in terms of human nature itself, and I really can't argue with any of it. On the other hand, I am defining cliches here quite differently. I view them here solely in the context of my purposes as a teacher of photographic expression. My site is devoted to teaching photographic expression, and when photographers express the same ideas in the same ways over and over and over again, I call them cliches here, and propose ways to avoid them.

I happen to think that any image that can stir fresh thoughts and ideas in a viewers mind is not a cliche. You argue that if people don't happen to appreciate ideas that are full of meaning, they are cliches. But I can't accept such reasoning as a teacher -- it's my mission to help photographers move beyond the level of redundant mediocrity if they wish to do so. To do that, they must aim for an audience that has the imagination to appreciate what they are trying to express. And forget about those that don't.

As for this particular example, I think it has the capacity to stimulate thought and imagination in ways that many sunset pictures do not. That is why I post it here. It certainly has made your own brain whirl a bit, and that is all I ask of it. And of you. It has also stimulated a lot of discussion here by some very fine photographers, including yourself.

As for you, dear Vera, go right ahead making pictures of sunsets to feed your own passions. If you are making them for your own pleasure, they are never cliches. But if you want to take that passion and use it to also make expressive pictures of sunsets that fuel the imagination of others, I would hope you would try to do what I suggest here: find ways to abstract them, make them incongruous, and refer to human values in ways that will provoke thought in all who see them. If you succeed, you are not in cliche-land. If you don't succeed, you are. At least that's how I look at it.


Guest 26-Nov-2004 07:14
To me, a photo becomes a cliche if it is made by someone that is passionate for or fascinated by the subject matter of the photo. The photo is taken just because everybody is taking it. Or because everybody says the subject matter makes a great photo. Or you feel 'obliged' to take it for some reason (e.g. you go to Paris and feel obliged to snap a you-have-been-here shot of la Tour Eiffel).
So sunset shots are never cliches for someone that is passionate for sunsets, like me. Often I go out and shoot at dusk and do not originally plan to take any photos of the sunset, but I end up taking at least a few shots of it out of reflex. I just can't help it because I am so much fasincated by sunsets. Every sunset looks different in my eyes. Taking millions of sunset photos don't mean I have to exhibit them for public viewing -- that's another reason there's no cliche here, as those sunset photos can just serve as your private collection, to retain memories of the beautiful happy days in your life.
What is cliche for a person is not necessarily a cliche for another. The former person feels it cliche because he doesn't care a pin about the subject matter. To me, a photo does not become a cliche just because similar photos have been done for gazillion times by others. Neither is a photo a cliche because, as you seemingly think, it does not tell a story or inspires one's imagination. Even a photo full of imagery or meaning becomes a cliche to someone that doesn't appreciate the subject matter.
So what is this photo for me? I fail to see it as story-telling with some intrinsic or deep meaning -- but I do imagine it as an egg yolk about to hit the hard solid ground, and I wonder what will become of it... will it break or will it bounce off the ground (perhaps it's a salted preserved egg yolk as in a Chinese mooncake). Yet I don't see it as a cliche either, because of my passion for sunsets.
I hope what I've said is not very difficult to follow.... Vera. :-)
Phil Douglis30-Oct-2004 05:58
What a lovely definition of a "non-cliche" Anna! Anyone who makes an image out of personal passion and awe is not making a cliche. They are making a memory that they can personally cherish forever. Others might look at the same image and say "same old, same old" but they were not there, and the image is not their own memory. I devote this chapter to making pictures of cliche subjects will not only remain a treasure for the person who takes the image, but ALSO perhaps say something to that person who thinks they have seen it all before. And that is what I think this image does. You saw a ghost ship riding up there in the sky. Jen saw the end of a sad love story, and so on. I just saw a cloud that would not give up, one that seems as if it would ride the sun down into the sea. I simply want this image to stimulate the imagination of my viewers. If it does that, it is not a cliche, but rather, a catalyst for thought and ideas.
Anna Yu30-Oct-2004 00:52
The cloud is like a ghost ship. A beautiful sunset.
Whether a picture becomes a cliché depends on how it was taken, in my opinion. So many postcard pictures seem to be taken by people who take pictures for their living, just a job to produce a contrasty pretty picture to sell. No wonder they are clichés. But a photo taken by someone who is awed by the beauty of a sunset in front of his eyes can never be a cliché. At least not to the person who took it.
Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 17:46
Thanks, Vicky. Glad you like the sunset. I disagree, with you however about the sea. I think it helps make this picture go beyond the cliche.

I agree with Jen Zhou, who said "I love what you did with the sea. A lot of people try hard to play with the pretty sunset reflections, but you create a world of mystery. The cold black sea is like a unknown -- there is more dark area in the picture than the beautiful sunset scene, which allows more space for the imagination to work."

Phil
Guest 28-Oct-2004 11:23
The sunset is beautiful. What you want to express is sun not sea.
Thus I think less portion of sea and add some other elements(ex:mountain) much better.
Phil Douglis26-Sep-2004 03:03
Good point, Bruce. I agree with you entirely. A sunset picture that ALSO contains other elements, such as mysterious clouds, or ships or land masses, can indeed be seen as going beyond a cliche. A cliche, as I define it, is the same picture made over and over again. A sunset as only a sunset. Nothing to give it context to work with or against, nothing to express its scale, or location or special qualities as a sunset. If a photographer can indeed bring in "an array of colors, shapes of clouds, or elements that suggest a particular place or environment" it is not a cliche at all, but an image that expresses an idea.

You also raise another good point here. Sometimes a picture is not a cliche to the photographer because of his or her own personal context for it. If I do not share that context, I might see it as an empty cliche. But say a photographer makes a picture of a sunset that took place hours before his dog Rover ran away and was never seen again. We don't know Rover, so for us that shot is just another empty cliche of sunset. But that photographer will always regard that picture as "Rover's last sunset?" Is that a cliche? Not for that photographer!
Guest 26-Sep-2004 01:09
I had to think about how I wanted to express my thoughts on this one.

This is no doubt a beautiful sunset, skillfully captured. It has meaning to you, and you have shared this with us in your caption. But what of other photographer's sunsets - ones that we might be tempted to dismiss as cliche? The array of colors, the shapes of clouds, the place and time - all may have great meaning to the one who captured that particular day-ending event. It's rather like that childhood pasttime of finding shapes in the clouds as one lay in the grass. What may appear as just another cloud, or a cliche, to us may indeed be special to somebody else (and may also be skillfully captured), just as our own - which has meaning and joy and drama for us - may appear as a cliche to another viewer.
Phil Douglis20-Sep-2004 19:37
Your response to my comments on your reaction to this image, Jen, is enormously satisfying to me. It shows me that you are begining to grasp my suggestions about looking at an image as only a starting point in the process of expression and communication. Now you can put your own great talents to work doing just that. You can start to make images that trigger ideas and feelings in your viewers, stimulating their intellects, emotions, and imaginations, and perhaps even change the way they may think and see. Expressive photography has the power to do that, Jen, and your instinctive sense of timing, gesture, abstraction, incongruity and human values will give you a head start.

Yes, being an active thoughtful viewer takes work, knowledge and experience. Some people get more out of the photographs of others because they have learned how to see them as messages rather than as mere descriptions, and are willing to open themselves to receiving and absorbing those messages. I now know that you are on your way to becoming one of them.

By commenting more and more on my pictures, you are building both your own picture-reading and picture-making skills as well . And if you can ever bring yourself to begin to add a strong critical dimension to your comments on my pictures, these skills will quickly deepen and broaden. Thanks, Jen, for putting the thought, work, and time into this -- it's not easy doing what I've asked of you here. But it is necessary if you are to someday realize your tremendous gifts as a photographic artist. Thanks for this comment, Jen -- opening such doors is my job as teacher of visual expression.
Jennifer Zhou20-Sep-2004 10:16
You, my dear teacher, opened a window for me when I was in the darkness; as I looking out from the window, you again open a door to me, I then walk toward the door finding another even bigger, brighter door which will take to a even wonderful world. I am following behind you with all my curiosity and excitement..

It is such a joy to learn the deep reasons for something, I don't know why I see a love story from this picture, but Minor White tells me that I was mirroring something in myself when making the observation. Making picture is the half part of this equivalence idea, the viewers then engage their all senses to feel the picture and to find their own meanings for it to complete another part of the whole process.. To be a good, active viewer is just as hard as being a good photographer, I guess it is why you encourage me to comment more which I start to enjoy very much...

Best/Jen
Phil Douglis19-Sep-2004 18:43
A photograph, Jen, is not an end in itself. It is a beginning. The most important purpose of a picture is to get the people who look at it to think, feel, wonder, and imagine. If I can do this consistently, I know that my photographs can be of value to others. This concept has always been at the heart of my photographic approach, and your comment on this picture certainly shows me that I am on the right track. You validate my intentions as a photographer and also as a teacher.

This concept of a photograph as a trigger to thought, was given to me about thirty years ago when I took a week long workshop with Minor White, one of the great photographers (and photographic thinkers) of the 20th century. White convinced me that the image itself is only a step in a process. It's what happens after the picture is made that is most important. White did not invent this idea -- his own discussions with Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams and Edward Weston strongly influenced the development of this concept, which is formally known as "mirroring" or "Equivalents". It is explained quite well in an article I found on the Internet at:http://photography.about.com/library/weekly/aa122401a.htm

Your comment to me is filled with metaphors about a single cloud. Clouds have long been used as metaphors. Stieglitz himself made some famous cloud photographs in the 1920s that he called "Equivalents". You can see them at:http://photography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.geh.org/fm/stieglitz/htmlsrc/stieglitz%5Fsld00003.html%2374:0052:0016

Let me quote a few key sentences from that article on equivalents I found on the net. It will tell you a lot about what you just went through in analyziing my own photograph:

"White's contact with Stieglitz awakened his interest in the metaphorical power of the photograph, and in particular its ability to induce or correspond with certain mental states in the viewer. A photograph can convey a feeling a joy (for example) in a similar way that a piece of music can. It was an idea to which Stieglitz had given the name of the 'Equivalent', in particular for a series of cloud studies he made in the 1920s. It was an idea that White was to develop both through his photography and his writing.

White went on to say: "If the individual viewer realizes that what he or she sees in a picture corresponds to something within themselves -- that is, the photograph mirrors something in themselves -- then their experience is some degree of Equivalence."

If White is correct, then what you discovered in this picture -- wisdom, beauty, love, loss, inevitability -- mirrors feelings that you have probably experienced yourself in your own life. In other words, you are seeing in this picture something that is an essential part of you.

Thirty years ago, Minor White changed my life. He was the first to convince me that my purpose as a photographer was not just to take pictures, but to make them, and make them so as to awaken feelings within my viewers that allow them to determine their meaning. I am thrilled to have been able to do this for you with this image, Jen. Take what you have learned from this experience and apply it to your own purposes as a photographer. Continue to tell stories but make them go beyond just pleasing the eye. Make sure they stimulate the minds of your viewers as well.

I am also glad you have learned from this photograph that meaning can come through any kind of subject matter. And that you feel this image is substantive in itself -- not just a cliche sunset. And that my abstract sea represents metaphors that stimulate thought, and is not the basis for just a pretty reflection.

You ask a good question regarding why I centered the sun on the horizon, too. I wished I could have placed the sun off center to increase tension. But the clouds were long, and needed room to drift on both ends. When I shifted my camera either to the left or right of the sun, I cut into that drifting space. If I zoomed the lens to a wider focal length to add more "drifting room," the sun and cloud would have decreased in size. So I really had no choice but to center it.

Thank you for this remarkable analysis, Jen. You learned a lot from it, and so did I. I hope you will learn much from this response that you can apply to your own thought provoking imagery, as well.

Phil
Jennifer Zhou19-Sep-2004 12:28
This may not be the prettiest sunset shot but is indeed a meaningful one. The more I look at it, the more I am moved because I am as if witnessing a touching, sad but beautiful love story. This red setting sun is like a wise, old man about to leave his loving wife--that never-give-up beautiful cloud. She is weeping as he about to leave, turning her head away afraid of he sees her tears that would make the leaving too hard to bear. But he is already heartbroken(the yellow and orange halves) as she softly comfort his heart for the very last time. He gives all he has to her and love her with all his heart, but no one can change the fact that they have to be apart.

I love a great deal of the way you did with the sea. I believe while a lot of people trying hard to play with the pretty sunset refections, you, my dear teacher, create a world of mystery. The cold black sea is like a unknow, unlucky future for him and is like a dark shadow casting in her heart as well. There is more dark area in the picture than the beautiful sunset scene which goes well with the idea of leaving, and give views more space for imagination.

I had made a lot of sunset shots but never thought much before taking them. Now after seeing this image I will ask myself when I next time take sunset picture: what I am trying to say here with this image other than only pleasing people's eyes. I used to think telling story only has things to do with people photography, but here you give us a perfect example that even landscape photography can be meaningful.. Thank you again for sharing this wonderful picture with us!

I have a question though: why you placed the sun in the center of the picture, I am not bothered by it in fact it makes perfect sense for my love story, but I would like to learn if you have special reason for that too?


Jen
Phil Douglis19-Sep-2004 01:45
Tim, you sent chills down my spine with this observation. When I looked that wisp of clouds hanging around the last moments of that day's sun, I had the same supernatural impression that you have related here, only I was too embarrassed to admit it in my analysis of this picture. OK - I'll say it now. It wasn't really an "artist's brush stroke" saying good night to the setting sun. It was indeed, the Goddess of The Night, coming around to tuck the Sun in for the evening. Isn't expressive photography wonderful?
Tim May19-Sep-2004 00:32
For me, not a sunset cliche, rather the stuff that myths are made from. It wisp of clouds becomes a goddess to me sweeping across the sky to travel with the ship through the night.
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