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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Nine: Composition -- putting it together > Into the valley, en route to Tineghir, Morocco, 2006
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20-DEC-2006

Into the valley, en route to Tineghir, Morocco, 2006

From the crest of a mountain road, we can envision our journey through the distant valley, to the oasis town of Tineghir. This is a “vista image” (See my entire gallery on vistas at http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/vistas ) To make a vista work in terms of composition, it is important that the eye move through it with ease. In the case of this vista, I have built it in layers, featuring a twisting mountain road in the foreground that leads the eye into the image, followed by a village in the middle layer as a focal point, and then backed by a layer of ridges that take the eye into the far background.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/500s f/8.0 at 18.3mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis18-Mar-2007 23:04
This landscape give us a sense of what most of Morocco really is -- a country on the edge. It is serene and lonely. There is a lot of space in Morocco, but as you note, Ceci, much of it provides marginal subsistence.
Guest 18-Mar-2007 06:10
This could be a scene out of the movie BABEL, part of which is shot in Morocco with its unforgiving overgrazed barren hills, sheep, primitive hill inhabitants, the laser eye of the sun, and its dearth of water -- except in the distance of this beautiful panoramic image, where some green shows among the houses. An oasis amidst erosion, rocks, sand, dust, in the valley! I love the lavender lines of receding ridges in contrast to the poured-looking earth tones, and the way the roads lie like exhausted serpents on the land, and the great shadows cast by the soft peaks. This scene is serene, spare, graceful and ultimately lonely.
Phil Douglis06-Feb-2007 19:42
Glad this image has triggered these thoughts, Zandra -- you see this image as a roadmap of life, of choices and options. The distant town does symblize stability, while the twisting road and difficult mountains could well be a metaphor for the journey we must take to find stabiity in our lives. Thanks for seeing it this way.
Guest 06-Feb-2007 14:45
A hositle land in a hostile world...a small town clinging to the edge of the mountain as man are clinging to the edge of humanity. Obsticles on each side, here in the shape of mountains adn hills, in life...transformed to the numerous of obsticles we face. A town...the oasis in a chaotic world...our point of reference where we find safety...i can see the town symbolise the fammily and the dessert hills becomes the world outside this fammily. Always present but with dangers and dissapointment learkign around. Following the road stretching out though...shows us the path to pass through these obsticles. The walk through a known land with know landmarks...the road to a fullfilling life...a bend every now and then, as ther is and shoudl be in life. A stright road woudl meen there are no obsticles...and hence we have learned nothing more then to walk in the direction in which our nose points. A bend and a cross road however makes us chooce. And to choose we ahve to evaluate our options...based on earlier experiences...and fromt that we learn. In the end, the road still takes us forward, at eh same time as it gives us teh option to look back and turn back shoudl the obsticle be to hard...
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