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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twelve: Using color to express ideas > Mekong Car Ferry, near Khone Island, Laos, 2005
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28-JAN-2005

Mekong Car Ferry, near Khone Island, Laos, 2005

There comes a moment on the Mekong when the sun becomes a red ball hanging low in the sky, and the muddy river turns from brown to a pinkish orange. This is such a moment. To make it work as expression, however, I needed more than the coloration, which created the atmosphere and lent an emotional tone to the image, but did not tell a story in itself. This lumbering old car ferry, however, did express a sense of life on the great river. Flying the Laotian flag, the ferry is really a barge – a floating platform that barely holds a few cars, motorbikes and cyclists. It is engulfed here in world of shimmering colors that reflect the passing of day and the coming of night.

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Phil Douglis16-Jul-2006 23:08
Thanks, Ceci -- I have always been a writer, as far back as I can remember. I majored in journalism. I have written books and 40 years of columns in a communications magazine. I use words here to offer context, intention and instruction, both in my caption and in my responses. Thanks for appreciating them. Meanwhile, I certainly appreciate your impressions of this image. It is you, Ceci, who completes this image with your verbal evocation of its purpose. Your words "lurid," "layered," "peace," and "shimmering luminescence" paint a picture all of their own. Between your words and my image, a viewer can more completely savor the essence of a Mekong evening here. You have absorbed this image, and made your own art of it.
Guest 16-Jul-2006 21:56
Ceci
Phil, you write so beautifully--providing a double treat for the visitor! The balance of this scene, the lurid setting sun, disappearing into the layered atmosphere on the right and the little conveyance chugging along slowly enough so that there is a sense of peace, on the left. People crossing over, getting from one place to another, living their lives, undeterred by bombs, fighter planes, mines, another nation's troops. Water in the air, in the river, in the trees and skies, providing its own shimmering luminescence and mood.
Phil Douglis01-Mar-2005 00:44
Another point well taken. Expressive photography is often based on contrast and juxtaposition. There is indeed an incongruity in the spectacle nature's colors provides along a river at sunset, contrasted to the jerry-built primitive river ferry we see plying its path here.
monique jansen28-Feb-2005 12:35
I see the richness of nature and the poorness of the people living in this particular part of the world.
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