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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Nine: The Layered Image – accumulating meaning > Hull, Kotor Bay, Montenegro, 2005
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15-SEP-2005

Hull, Kotor Bay, Montenegro, 2005

While cruising through Kotor Bay, we passed a small shipyard, where freighters were being repaired and refurbished. I used my telephoto lens at its full 432mm length to abstract the hull of a distant ship, forming a three-layer image. The foreground layer is a shimmering reflection, which leads the eye to the ship. The middle ground layer is the dock at right, with its extending ladder at upper right and an array of colored ropes, each of them used for a specific repair function. The background layer holds the hull of the massive ship itself – its surface resembling a painter’s palette, with reflected light dancing gently along its keel, its name in bold lettering, and the shadows of the ropes and ladders attached to it adding their voices to the chorus. The variations in the play of light helps make this layered image function as expression.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/1000s f/5.6 at 72.0mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis07-Feb-2007 20:03
Glad to "boggle your head" Ceci. I knew you would appreciate the colors and patterns on the hull of this ship, delicate as they may be, as abstractions of power. A flayed whale is an excellent simile. You have changed the way I now look at my own picture. Thanks for the jolt.
Guest 07-Feb-2007 06:59
These colors and patterns, and the enormous bulk of the freighter, lend an appearance of a flayed whale that is being towed to harbor. It's a great abstract, with its reflections, textures, huge surfaces juxtaposed with delicate lines (which I know must be inches thick!) and that one bolt of light on the left as the sun strikes part of the ship. I am left with a sense of something gigantic and powerful, yet suspended on the liquid sea, and under the command of man. It boggles the head.
Phil Douglis12-Nov-2005 19:07
Thanks, Alister, for being the first to comment on this image, one of my favorites. You see in it what I did. I did not give as much thought to the unusual focusing -- I was more concerned with the layers of meaning here. The reflectioons, the dock and its ladder and ropes, and the bottom of the great hull itself, an amazing display of subtle coloration. As for the focus, everything here is equally sharp. I love selective focus, too -- but in this case it was not there.
alibenn12-Nov-2005 10:09
This is an interesting image indeed. I love the abstraction, layers and reflections; all tools covered in other galleries of your cyber-book. The key for me is the unusual focussing. The reflection on the hull makes that area soft and further abstracted, the water too is soft. The implied area of sharpness on my monitor is the ladder leading to the ship from the quay, and the tangle of ropes. Now I suspect this is all an illusion, as I would assume using your tele lens at f5.6 would render all areas equally in focus. Focus is such a great tool, as you know I am a big fan of selective focus....great vision Phil..
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