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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Six : Using reflections to transform reality > Golden puddle, Canyon de Chelly National Park, Arizona, 2007
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08-NOV-2007

Golden puddle, Canyon de Chelly National Park, Arizona, 2007

Just before sunset, the puddles on the canyon floor turn gold, because of the intense light on the surrounding cliffs. Instead of photographing those cliffs, I shot their reflections. They may show us less of the canyon itself, yet they somehow say more. When I look at this image, I feel as I am flying high above a flooded landscape at sunset – yet we are actually looking at only a few feet of mud and water. One of the goals of an expressive image is to stimulate the imagination of the viewer, and I believe that this kind of photograph can do that very well.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/400s f/6.3 at 46.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis13-Dec-2007 06:41
Good question, Jenene. I included the bush in my framing because I wanted the image to have an anchor in reality, something for the simulated "arial landscape" to play against. If I had cropped it out of the frame, the image would become one of those "what is it?" tricks -- and I don't usually make trick images. I leave plenty to the imagination here as it is, and I wanted to do just that, but without gimmicks.
JSWaters13-Dec-2007 05:16
I like your idea of abstracting this to look like a landscape from above, but as you say to Tim, the bush gives the scale away. I would have chosen to crop it out - care to share your reasoning?
Jenene
Phil Douglis30-Nov-2007 23:32
I should have called this image "Invitation to the Mud" (with apologies to Carl Maria von Weber). It is a tactile photograph, and invites the viewer to enter it.
Patricia Lay-Dorsey30-Nov-2007 22:29
I find my eye drawn to the fingers of sand reaching out into the reflections, like children dipping their hands into the muddy water. I can just hear a mother yelling, "Johnny, get your fingers out of that mud right now!"
Phil Douglis24-Nov-2007 23:51
You are right, Tim -- without the headline and caption, one could see this as an air view of Lake Powell at sunset.
Only the bush in the upper right hand corner would give this trick in relative scale away.
Tim May24-Nov-2007 18:11
You have created a little Lake Powell on the desert floor.
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