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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty: When walls speak and we listen > Poster wall, Soho, New York City, 2006
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07-AUG-2006

Poster wall, Soho, New York City, 2006

Soho is an eclectic recycled New York neighborhood. (Its name is an acronym for “SOuth of HOuston Street.”) It was formerly known as “Hells Hundred Acres” – a warren of early 20th Century sweatshops. It was gentrified in the 60s and 70s and today is known for its shops, galleries, antiques, and lofts that sell for millions. Not to mention entertainment. The walls of its buildings are plastered with posters advertising pleasures that range from listening to music to watching murder. It is appropriate that this pair of young wall readers are dressed largely in black – they seem to blend in to the posters and become absorbed by them visually as they are verbally. I compose this image as a series of layers, starting with a No Parking sign in the foreground with a pair of bikes locked to it, as my anchor. The pair of wall readers in the second layer echoes the pair of bikes in the first layer. The posters themselves make up the third layer – most of them requiring a context that goes far beyond my own in order to understand what they are promoting. (As my own kids would be quick to tell me, “It’s not meant for you, dad.”) A fourth layer is a bit grittier – a huge graffiti signature is painted on the wall partially behind the posters. The fifth and final layer is the old brick wall itself – a surface supporting the posters, the graffiti, and even an air conditioner that has bars over it to keep it from being stolen.

Leica D-Lux 2
1/40s f/4.5 at 18.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis18-Aug-2006 19:49
I know you are listening, Ai Li, and learning as well. I needed the bikes to create the perception of depth. And I needed the viewers to create juxtaposition, context, and meaning. Without either of these layers, the image is merely a description of a wall covered with posters.
AL18-Aug-2006 10:15
An old wall that speaks a thousand "new" words :-) Amazing layering and detail. And I love your brilliant inclusion of its viewers and neighbouring sign and bikes, for a fuller and stronger context. Phil, I'm listening...
Phil Douglis15-Aug-2006 23:26
Thanks, Jack. I used the Leica D-Lux 2 in New York City because it was so unobtrusive. It makes me look like just another tourist snapping pictures, and that was perfect. Nobody paid any attention to me. If had leveled my much larger FZ30 at them, with its serious 420mm zoom, I would have been a marked man in some cases. And Rodney -- thanks for calling attention to the four posters showing a dining room table. It does indeed add an extra layer to the image, and that is where the voyeuristic quality of this image kicks in. Thanks to you both for coming to this image.
Guest 15-Aug-2006 22:48
It has a voyeur quality to it. I see the layers you refer too, but I also love the extra depth created by the four posters of the individuals at the dining room table (an optical illusion of looking into a 'room'). It's as if the two viewers in black are about to look into someone's home if they happen to look up.
Guest 15-Aug-2006 21:31
Nice image! Phil, you are using this camera again.
Phil Douglis15-Aug-2006 20:23
You are right, Chris, there is much to see here, both for these boys and for us, as viewers. Yet I have tried to organize this volume of information coherently, by leading the eye through a series of layers and juxtapositions that gradually tells the story of how this New York City neighborhood entertains itself.
Chris Sofopoulos15-Aug-2006 16:48
So many things to see in this picture Phil.
Phil Douglis14-Aug-2006 18:15
Such is the nature of communication, Hina. This wall speaks to them, and to us, in many ways, some of which they understand and I don't. That's the beauty of it, isn't it?
Guest 14-Aug-2006 11:28
a millions words and stories it tells...
Phil Douglis14-Aug-2006 03:37
Thanks, Yanan, for these few but pertinent words. I should have used them for my title!
YNW14-Aug-2006 00:51
The talk of the city
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