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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Sixty One: Signs as symbols > Out of business, Shaniko, Oregon, 2008
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17-SEP-2008

Out of business, Shaniko, Oregon, 2008

Shaniko was a booming wool town one hundred years ago. Today it is a ghost town. Two thirds of the town, including its hotel and café, has been purchased privately, shut down, and put up for sale. Among the closures is the building reflected in this window. Cobwebs, a “closed” sign, and the shuttered hotel across the street, symbolize the present state of Shaniko.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/250s f/4.0 at 17.8mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis27-Sep-2008 19:42
Thanks, Tim, for amplifying the factors behind this image. You were there in Shaniko with me -- we both saw the genuine history there, the overlay of commercialization, and the current sense of desolation and neglect. The cobwebs sum it up. Only the spiders have been active in this place.
Tim May27-Sep-2008 19:09
Two elements strike me in this image. One is the distorted reflection. Shaniko, as we saw it, seemed distorted. There was a historic town there - the skeletons of a ghost town, and there was the "touristy" town there. The exploitation of history as a tourist attraction. That "town" also seemed to have faded. It was a town distorted by history and the present.
The other thing I like in this image is the cobwebs - the town as it currently is.
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