Aboard the Grand Canyon Railroad, near Williams, Arizona, 2007 photo

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Five: Using the frame to define ideas > Aboard the Grand Canyon Railroad, near Williams, Arizona, 2007

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08-AUG-2007

Aboard the Grand Canyon Railroad, near Williams, Arizona, 2007

I have turned seven windows of a railroad car into a series of frames looking out on to the rolling plains of Northern Arizona, by exposing for the exterior and allowing the interior and its passengers to become symbolic abstractions of a journey in progress. The steam-powered train is carrying tourists between the canyon and the small Arizona town of Williams. (For another image featuring this unique railroad, click on the thumbnail below.

Leica D-Lux 3
1/400s f/6.3 at 6.3mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Phil Douglis		19-Jan-2008 04:03
If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, right? I used this same principle. A lady in bright white shirt was spoiling my composition of the great wall of China in the fog. The eye went to her shirt, instead of to my concept of the great wall. And so I waited until she eventually integrated herself into my composition, and her white shirt actually made it work more effectively. Seehttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/86309807

Guest		03-Jan-2008 18:38
Once again, a wonderful photo which I would likely have missed as I would have had my face to the window trying to capture the landscape speeding by. I love this. I love the people that I likely would have cursed, secretly wishing they all would duck at the same time. Vera

Phil Douglis		19-Aug-2007 18:47
The landscape leading to the Grand Canyon is seemingly endless prairie, broken here and there by distant hills. And so, yes, it comes as a shock when that prairie abruptly changes to rocky, forested gorges leading to the Grand Canyon itself. The journey here is truly anticipatory -- these abstracted figures will soon be seeing a sight they will remember for all of their days.

JSWaters		19-Aug-2007 04:15
These anonymous traveler's are ready to be blown away by the visions that await them. A great anticipatory image. Jenene

Phil Douglis		15-Aug-2007 16:26
Anonymity is the key here, Mo. These are not specific passengers. They are travelers on a journey across a vast landscape that flicks past them, window by window.

monique jansen		15-Aug-2007 06:28
Backlit figures rendered anonymous, looking at a colored landscape. Abstraction and reality, a study in contrasts again.

Phil Douglis		13-Aug-2007 22:35
That is what I was trying to do here, Kal -- give my viewers an impression of a journey in progress. There are four layers here -- the abstracted passengers are mute and static in the foreground, but the black frames appear to be cumulatively moving as a film strip because they recede in scale as they slip back toward the right hand edge of the frame. Within the frames, we have a layer of land -- vast and lonely as much of the west. And finally, a layer of clouds drifts through most of the frames, perpetuating that cumulative sense of motion.

Kal Khogali		13-Aug-2007 21:06
I love this image. It's like a slide film strip, recording each stage of the train journey. Great. K

Phil Douglis		13-Aug-2007 17:40
It does seem like a rolling cage, doesn't it, Charu? I transformed the passengers into abstract silhouettes -- faceless and formless symbols of people in transit.

Guest		13-Aug-2007 04:35
this reminds me of the Desmond Morris' title - the human zoo - we view nature / animals from behind bars - and I wonder if nature looks at us and imagines that we are ones living behind bars all the time! and I like the dark silhouettes - almost melting into nothingness towards one side of the frame...

Phil Douglis		12-Aug-2007 01:56
It was the coming of the railroad that opened up the American west and altered the balance of man and nature there forever. Estranged, indeed!

Tim May		11-Aug-2007 23:55
I think this speaks to the interaction of man and nature - viewing it from a distance - estranged, but interested.

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