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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Two: Travel Incongruities > No Photos Allowed, Vientiane, Laos, 2005
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No Photos Allowed, Vientiane, Laos, 2005

A few Laotian temples do not allow photographers to make pictures inside of them. I was fascinated by this sign, wrapped in ruined film and anchored by a beer can. I found it incongruous in itself to be actually making a photo of a no-photos-allowed sign. There were several levels of incongruity at work here, and I tried to take advantage of all of them. In many ways, the camera and medium itself are incongruous in this context. The primitive drawing of a vintage single lens reflex camera and the actual spool of exposed film seem in some ways to be as archaic in their way as the ancient temple is in its way. Removing exposed film from a camera and wrapping it around the sign uses incongruity to make its own point. The use of the beer can, as an anchor for the sign is also incongruous, considering it stands on what I presume must be sacred ground. I placed the exposed film in the lower left hand corner of my frame so that it leads the eye up to the sign. I placed the sign off to the left, incongruously comparing its aging design with the aging façade of the temple itself to its right.


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Phil Douglis05-Mar-2006 18:23
Mhlau, your question are always relevant as far as I'm concerned. I always use a spot meter myself, not because I am lazy but because I have more control over exposure that way and can avoid burnouts, which are more common to cameras with smaller sensors like mine. However shot was made in a shadowed area. The light was even and flat, with no variation between light and dark. Any kind of metering choice would give an accurate reading here.
Guest 05-Mar-2006 11:04
Phil, for these type of photos, what kind of metering do you use? I guess I have been lazy and always use spot metering. Will it work here? And if so, where should I meter? Apologies for my amateurish questions!
Phil Douglis17-Apr-2005 19:42
You read so much meaning into this image, Ruth, ideas that were far from my mind as I made it. I can see where you are coming from here, and you raise some excellent points. The redundant warnings (x'd-out camera, ruined film) are pleas to preserve their culture by asking us, again and again, not to steal their souls with our images. You make me look beyond the humorous photographic references here, and think instead about how photos of this sacred place could be seen as a perversion of belief. I will never look at this image in the same way again, Ruth. Thank you for such substantive thinking.
ruthemily17-Apr-2005 19:23
now, this one i do understand! i like the humour - the "dare to take a photograph and this is what will happen to it" aspect, but i can also see a deeper, perhaps more poignant meaning. so many groups of people around the world are frightened that photographs or other similar mediums of imagery can remove part of their soul and being. by having this powerful sign (it doesn't just say "no photographs", it speaks louder than that) by a very aged and traditional looking temple, it is as if they feel threatened that in taking photographs, you are taking part of their spirituality from them. i get the feeling that maybe they feel that once you have "stolen" that aspect of their culture, it becomes redundant. it is no use to you because you can't see or understand it outside of its context. just like if they took your roll of film and unrolled/exposed it, those images would be ruined and meaningless. no use to anyone.
Phil Douglis10-Apr-2005 03:35
Hey, Sonia, the 60s were my heyday, remember? Way, way before your time. I remember those old Mamiya cameras well. They did not have "through the lens" meters -- they had an external light meter attached to the prism on the outside of the camera. And that is what you see in this drawing.
Guest 09-Apr-2005 16:10
Thanks for the correction, I know too little about cameras!
Phil Douglis08-Apr-2005 22:52
I took this picture because of that drawing, Sonia, and am glad you found it as incongruous as I did. In fact, it fooled you for a moment -- you even thought I had made this image back in the ancient days of film. Instead, you learned that this image is a current one -- whereas Laos remains in a photographic time warp. As for the make of that camera, it does not look like a Nikon to me because I don't recall external light sensors that large on their prisms. It looks more like a 1960s Mamiya. See this link: -http://herron.50megs.com/fixed-1.htm
Guest 08-Apr-2005 21:53
Sorry .. this is a comment on the drawing rather than the picture for I found it too attractive! I thought you took the picture a long time ago but when I looked at the date, it was only this year - the age of digital cameras! However I am almost sure that it is a Nikon ... Funny that the shutter and the film winding is not in perspective as the camera does, which makes it look like a contemporary painting - another incongruity it stands in front of the ancient building.
Phil Douglis12-Mar-2005 20:15
Thanks, Celia, for these observations. Although I use it here as an example of a travel incongruity, you also show us how small details here work to visually help to define a culture. The interplay of the sacred and profane here does indeed project the resourcefulness of a relatively poor society, as well as how protective it is of its sacred assets. I was drawn to it because the message of this sign was addressed to me. Its primitive graphics, and its reference to film, which I consider to be now almost as archaic in its way as the temple itself, was stunningly incongruous to me. Yet you are right -- there is much more to this image than a picture of a long obsolete camera wrapped in light struck film and stuck into an old beer can against the wall of a sacred shrine. This is Laos in microcosm.
Cecilia Lim12-Mar-2005 18:04
The magnitude of incongruities working here is superb! I ditto what you and everyone has expressed about your image here. But I also wanted to add that details like these can be an important expression in travel photography about the psyche and culture of a place. By looking closer into the environment at this little sign against an old, weathered temple wall, show us that despite the aging and deterioration of these temples, the people here still regard them as sacred - so sacred that not even their image may be stolen or captured as photographs. The materials that they used for the sign also indicate to us that Laotians are poor but are creatively resourceful as a people. Isn't it interesting how small details can speak so much and give us such a great sense of the place? Now, this is what I call great travel photography!
Phil Douglis08-Mar-2005 23:19
You are very kind, Clara, to call this image itself a piece of art. It certainly expresses cultural naivete, and raises questions about the changing nature of art itself. And yes, that sign is rather humorous. There are not many in the world quite like it.
Guest 08-Mar-2005 16:55
Beautiful image, formally a piece of art itself, aside of its material content.
Now, the sign is real fun, and expresses the naivety of the people who made it.
Phil Douglis07-Mar-2005 18:31
Not long at all, Tim. The sales of digital cameras world wide have no surpassed the sales of film cameras. Film cameras will always exist, but they will be used pretty much as movie cameras are now used. Mass market home movies have long since been replaced by video. Only professional cinematographers now use movie film. This sign is already archaic. But I don't think it will be replaced by a frame full of ruined flash cards. Unlike a roll of film, a memory card is designed for years of use. How many ruined cards do you have? But your point is well made. Signs such as this can be an indicator of how a culture perceives technology.
Tim May07-Mar-2005 16:47
I wonder how long it will be before we would see a ruined flash-card rather than exposed film - sort of an ethnographic measure of change.
Phil Douglis28-Feb-2005 06:38
Thanks, Dandan, for enjoying this image as much as I did making it. I not only saw the humor, but also profound incongruities as well. (By the way, my previous comment was made in response to Monique's comment, not yours.)
Phil Douglis28-Feb-2005 04:30
Incongruity is the art of juxtaposing elements to create contrasts that express meaning. You have listed all of the elements in the picture, but you don't relate or contrast them to each other.
Guest 27-Feb-2005 21:39
I laugh when I saw this, the ruined film is a warning sign, it says: “ if you take picture, your film will look like this one…” Effective?
monique jansen27-Feb-2005 16:17
I can see why you would take this picture, but I do not feel like it is so incongruous really - yes, there is the film, the beer can, the old wall, tattered, with a tattered sign of an oldfashioned camera, but so what? Does not work for me.
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