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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery One: Travel Abstractions -- Unlimited Thought > Monument Valley, Arizona, 2009
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14-NOV-2009

Monument Valley, Arizona, 2009

The silhouetted monoliths of Monument Valley, the vast Navajo park straddling the Arizona-Utah border, rise before us from a desert landscape. I abstract this image by shooting into the sun, creating the silhouette and turning the highway before us into a silvery ribbon of concrete. The stark design of this image demands black and white rendering. By removing the greenish brown color of the desert and replacing it with deep grays and blacks, the geometry of the road and the shapes of the monoliths work seamlessly together to signify the vastness of the space before us. The truck poised to enter the curve at the bottom of the frame anchors the image, adding a touch of scale incongruity in the process.

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Phil Douglis01-Dec-2009 02:38
I love your point about connection, Iris. This image is all about connection -- the long road, glistening in the dark shadows of the desert speaks of such linkage as you describe here. I agree -- the road runs two ways, both to and from Monument Valley, echoing the disparate journeys of the Navajo people themselves.
Iris Maybloom (irislm)01-Dec-2009 02:16
By converting this to black and white, you have not only abstracted the image, you have created a sense of timelessness and history to it. For me, the long, winding road, which leads either to or from the monoliths, is a metaphor for the conflicted Navajo experience. While many have left the "nation" for new opportunities, many have returned to reestablish their spiritual connection the land the the people.
Phil Douglis28-Nov-2009 02:38
Such a cropped version as you suggest would work as well -- Robert Frank, in his landmark book The Americans -- made such an image in New Mexico:http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.artinfo.com/media/image/128364/MP1208_FDG_014.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.artinfo.com/news/enlarged_image/29541/128364/&usg=__po7C4-NyoQxnWTglWRSP2sw8bAc=&h=1000&w=648&sz=255&hl=en&start=13&sig2=Wr0AyNXL6cwRrUhZQ2FXXg&tbnid=KWQdNwfORZx3AM:&tbnh=149&tbnw=97&prev=/images%3Fq%3DRobert%2BFrank%2BNew%2BMexico%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DG&ei=kYwQS9jWI4fZnAefmPnwAw
sunlightpix28-Nov-2009 00:29
The road and the truck is such a strong composition that you could even crop out the top of the image and it works; to me, the top is the frosting on the cake, so to speak.
Phil Douglis27-Nov-2009 19:03
Thanks so much, Brian, for appreciating the structure and meaning of this image. I particularly like your view of the road as a huge question mark. All journeys are accompanied by questions, and this one was no exception. Thanks for coming to my galleries -- your comments are always valued.
Guest 27-Nov-2009 14:55
It's a beautiful capture Phil, I love the way you've created a sense of huge scale by using the road and, as you say anchoring the image with the truck.

The image just fires my imagination - something you do so often through your photography Phil... I saw the road as a huge question mark too.

Kind Regards

Brian
Phil Douglis25-Nov-2009 19:25
The cloud barely brushes over the butte -- I liked it as well. We had several different stories to tell at once here, and had to choose framing accordingly. A wide view wraps the buttes and road in a cloudscape, including an ominous black cloud that I had to crop out of my frame as I zoomed in to stress the truck as a comparative scale anchor. The long telephoto view compresses the road and that makes that dip an integral part of the image. The anchor, compression, and big dip won the day for me here.
Tim May25-Nov-2009 18:51
A couple of things that I note here - one is the dip in the road which for me adds to the vastness - like the way an unbroken line is a symbol for an infinite amount of space. But I think my favorite part of the image is the way the cloud comes in front of the mountain.
Phil Douglis24-Nov-2009 18:33
Thanks, Alina -- I built this image around this long road, but without the large truck in the foreground, it would have no anchor. I was torn here between wanting to go to a wideangle view or using this 300mm telephoto approach. A wideangle view would have included a glorious black cloud hovering above the the landscape just out of the frame. But if I had included that cloud, I would have lost the scale of the truck, which was essential for comparison purposes. (Note the two tiny cars on the road well behind it -- they tell us just how vast this scene is.)
Alina24-Nov-2009 12:01
Baeutiful composition
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