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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventy Three: Expressive treasures from the underpass. > The runner, Santa Barbara, California, 2014
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12-JUN-2014

The runner, Santa Barbara, California, 2014

A sole runner takes over the same underpass I used as the setting of the previous image in this gallery. Only now I stand within the underpass itself. I saw her coming as she entered the tunnel, and waited for her to reach the foliage growing through the tunnel’s vaulted ceiling. I fill most of the frame with a virtually empty cement foreground, stressing the distance she has yet to cover. I use the softly focused railing at right to lead the eye into the image, while the roughly textured cement wall leads us through the frame from the left. I create a scale incongruity by diminishing the size of the runner. She is small, while the hard-edged environment is vast and somewhat daunting. She comes at us from the warmth of the sun-splashed end of the tunnel crowned with greens, and now must negotiate the barren, chilly path that stretches before her.

FujiFilm X-M1
1/340s f/5.6 at 53.0mm iso800 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis09-Sep-2014 19:33
Thanks, Iris. So much of sports photography involve anticipating the moves of an athlete and waiting for them to happen. This woman may run for miles, and the long time tunnel offered me a perfect metaphor for a distance yet to be traveled. I saw her coming long before she reached this spot, and knew what I wanted to express before I pressed the shutter button.
Iris Maybloom (irislm)08-Sep-2014 19:14
You caught her at the perfect moment…..well worth the wait.
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