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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty One: The Marketplace -- crossroads of a community. > Spice lady, Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan, 2006
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27-MAR-2006

Spice lady, Ishigaki, Okinawa, Japan, 2006

Business is slow for this spice merchant in one of Ishigaki's colorful markets. She sells some of the ingredients necessary for Yaeyama cooking -- a regional Japanese cuisine. The spice is important context here, but it is the expressiveness of her hand gesture and face that provides meaning. She appears tired, perhaps bored, resigned to the fact that customers are far and few between. I also took note of how the necks of the tall bottles rhythmically repeat the flow of her fingers. Their bright orange color dominates the image and act as pointers to the hand and face above them.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
1/50s f/3.6 at 34.5mm iso80 full exif

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Phil Douglis18-Jul-2006 18:47
You make a good point here, Han, about the value of a "representative moment." This is a slice of life image -- a mixture of patience, boredom, comfort, relaxation, and what you call here "unconscious normality."
Guest 18-Jul-2006 15:07
"normality" plays an important role here except the intensity of color and the incongruity
this is a very comfortable and relaxing pose for her to fade into her daily "unconscious normality"-- watching people come and go. the moment itself is representive, that's what makes this photo valuable
Phil Douglis21-Apr-2006 22:31
Thanks, Celia, for appreciating the reasons why I made this image as I did. I am always looking for color contrasts and for incongruous relationships between body language and its surrounding context.
Cecilia Lim21-Apr-2006 19:25
I think the vibrant colours are an important element in offering contrast to her lethargic expression. She seems to receed even further back with her muted dull clothing and wrinkled face against the bright oranges and yellows! A picture of resignation indeed! What a perfect moment to have captured too with her fingers and bottles mirroring each other!
Phil Douglis20-Apr-2006 05:14
The color drew me as much as her expression, Carol. Red is the most active, vibrant and aggressive color of all, and in this case, it creates a strong and incongruous contrast when juxtaposed against this woman's passive demeanor.
Carol E Sandgren20-Apr-2006 03:19
Her face tells it all. That job takes a lot of patience! And it's interesting how the colors of the bottles are so much brighter than she or her surroundings are.
Phil Douglis19-Apr-2006 02:22
From punster to punster, thank you.
Tim May19-Apr-2006 01:24
I see an incongruity here, the spice lady looks like she could use something to spice up her life.
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