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Cecilia Lim | all galleries >> Galleries >> life > Godzilla's Portrait
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8 Oct 2003 Langkawi Island, Malaysia

Godzilla's Portrait

I stumbled upon this water lizard sunning on a rock by the beach while exploring the coast with my camera. At the same time, my husband was taking photos further behind on the horizon. I knew it was a great opportunity to make a humorous image if I could choose my vantage point carefully. I approached the lizard slowly and found the perfect spot to make the picture. The lizard now appeared bigger than my husband and they were face to face! Perfect! "Godzilla" posed beautifully for me long enough for me to make this shot before crawling away to a more secluded spot away from prying lens.


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Ezekiel 2015-Sep-2005 11:48
Nice capture! :)
Phil Douglis16-Mar-2005 23:32
You make an excellent point here, Celia. Expressive photos can work at different levels of initial perception. Since this is an amusing incongruous scale relationship, I would prefer to see it revealed instantaneously. In photography, subtle humor is very difficult to bring off. Something is usually funny or it isn't. However, if you want subtle, you got subtle here! You know that is Chor taking a picture in the background. You can see him in your minds eye. We don't know this until you give us the written context and then we get it and then we chuckle. I would prefer that everyone sees him for what he is instantly -- Lizard food, and an incongruous symbol for the lengths wildlife photographers will go to to get a shot. In the end, we agree on this pictures biggest lesson. Depth of field can certainly affect meaning.
Cecilia Lim16-Mar-2005 21:40
Phil, I'm glad you enjoyed the incongruity here. I understand that making my husband in sharp focus simultaneously will make the visual joke more explicit, and the effect would be quite different. But on the other hand, I also like the joke to come through more subtley, thus still allowing the lizard to be the star of the show. There's also a sense of depth that has been created here which I enjoy seeing because this layering makes us think a bit harder, to wonder if this was a funny coincidence - a sort of accidental collision of two entirely different worlds of two totally different beings doing totally different things, yet crossing paths to create a funny and almost credible moment like this. But what you have said brings up an important point that I will always make a point to remember, & that's how depth of field affects meaning. Thanks Phil!
Phil Douglis15-Mar-2005 06:06
Another excellent concept in scale incongruity, but the soft focus on your husband and the sharp focus on the lizard breaks up the joke. To make it work you would have to use a very small f/stop to bring your husband the lizard into similar degrees of sharpness.