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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty-Five: Using clouds to imply meaning > Sixth of July at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado, 2007
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06-JUL-2007

Sixth of July at Coors Field, Denver, Colorado, 2007

I spent two evenings viewing baseball games at Coors Field while in Denver. You can see an image I made from the upper deck two nights earlier at http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/82040708.

On this evening, the cloud cover was completely different, and so was my vantage point and framing. Once again, the clouds are the subject, while the stadium provides the context. I exposed for the clouds, abstracting the stadium. The crowd, so evident in the other image, is invisible here. The light towers play against the feathery white cloud cover, giving them scale. The clouds resemble massive plumes of smoke, symbolic of a community gathering around the “campfire” of sport.

Leica D-Lux 3
1/1000s f/8.0 at 6.3mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis12-Jul-2007 21:50
Thank you, Tim, for this thought. I must have spent as much time watching the changing light that evening as I did watching the baseball game itself. The stadium lights are intended to turn night into day, while the setting sun changes day into night. The clouds here are caught in between -- they ring down the curtain on the day as night falls, yet they still reflect the fading light of a vanished sun. And thanks for seeing the beauty here. Sometimes a picture speaks primarily of beauty -- a combination of qualities that that pleases aesthetic senses. And to some, that, in itself, is enough.
Tim May12-Jul-2007 16:17
I see the transmutation of light. It is, for me, as if the fading light of the sky has been caught by the stadium lights, to continue the illumination of the day into the night. Besides that all - it is simply beautiful.
Phil Douglis11-Jul-2007 05:34
Thanks, Jenene, for seeing the ultimate purpose of this cloudscape, and understanding why it works as it does. And yes, coming together to watch a sporting event is a community event, and sitting around a campfire is certainly a metaphor for community. Just watching the sun wane, and those magical clouds gather overhead as night replaced day, was as nostalgic as watching the game of baseball itself.
JSWaters11-Jul-2007 03:33
What a fabulous cloudscape, Phil. It's as if the waning sun is transferring it's power to the stadium lights - the only feature of the park that is not in silhouette. It fits perfectly into your idea of community and cooperation.
Jenene
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