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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Fifty Eight: Man and nature -- expressing our relationship with the environment > Field Trip, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008
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15-MAY-2008

Field Trip, Yosemite National Park, California, 2008

A cluster of high school students gathers on Yosemite’s Stoneman Meadow. They stand below the budding trees and massive granite monoliths that make Yosemite a spectacular natural arena, yet they seem to have eyes only for each other. I make the group of students incongruously small, dwarfed by the grandeur of the natural world. I wanted this image to imply the subordinate role of man in the natural realm. The great meadow below their feet, and the towering trees and cliffs of Yosemite above them, should still be there long after the last human has departed. Yet we also might wonder, given the precarious state of the global environment, if Yosemite too, may someday vanish.

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Phil Douglis26-May-2008 23:20
Thankfully, Alina, the United States government, starting at the beginning of the last century, has put aside wilderness areas such as Yosemite as National Parks and our tax dollars are put to work to keep them more or less as they always have been. What we see here is part of the same process -- education is critical. Future generations must continue to value such treasures as Yosemite if parks such as this are to survive. Ultimately, man must see the great value we have in the natural world as it was, and is. If not, we may lose it to commercial greed, pollution, global warming, and self-interests.
Alina26-May-2008 22:52
Everything is changing but i hope Yosemite will stay like this for centuries. It is beautiful picture. People are surrounded by stunning scenery and the meadow has the color that only spring can give.
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