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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Four: The Workplace -- essence of a culture > Café, Lake Quinault, Washington, 2009
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22-JUN-2009

Café, Lake Quinault, Washington, 2009

Customers at this café are confronted with many choices. But those who work here do not have the luxury of choice. They must do the jobs expected of them. Those jobs seem challenging – there were only two people working here, and they both appear in this 24mm wideangle image. We see a cook through the window at the left, and an order clerk standing in the doorway at right. She stands before a floor fan, resting her hand on the door frame -- the body language of someone who has put in a hard day. Between them stands a blizzard of written communication – menus, instructions, warnings and advertisements surround a soda machine and other self-service items. Lake Quinault is a small resort town in the Olympic State Forest, and this small café, in the back of the local general store, seems to be a popular local hangout.

Leica D-Lux 4
1/40s f/2.0 at 5.1mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis05-Jul-2009 21:03
A good example of clutter as communication. You are right -- there is no corporate presence here. Just a series of compounded decisions, stacked one on top of the other, just as it should be in a real world.
Tim May05-Jul-2009 20:49
I like that this image is so cluttered - an environment that is so un-designed - unlike national franchises. Here the clutter so represented the real world - the local store.
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