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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery One: Travel Abstractions -- Unlimited Thought > Village pump, Khajuraho, India, 2008
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28-MAR-2008

Village pump, Khajuraho, India, 2008

By pressing my shutter button just as the shawl of her sari covered her face, I was able to make one woman into thousands. Although it is the 21st Century, rural Indians still must draw water from the village pump. Central plumbing not generally exist outside of the urban areas. This is a fact of life – every day starts at the pump, where water is obtained for household purposes. Abstracting this woman changes her into a symbolic figure. She becomes all who, day after day and year after year, must go to the water instead of letting the water come to them.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/400s f/4.5 at 30.4mm iso200 full exif

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Phil Douglis28-Jan-2009 20:54
This is her technology, Shawn. She depends as much on this well used water pump as you probably depend on your cell phone or computer. I am glad the image makes you wonder about who is better off -- by obscuring her identity, I am able to make you less concerned about her identity and appearance, and instead encourage you to focus on the meaning of the image itself, which in your case comes down to economic and social comparisons.
Guest 28-Jan-2009 18:27
When I view an image like this I generally start to stereotype the people within it thinking they live in poverty or are not happy with the life they have been given but then when I stop and look at my own life filled with technology I wonder who is better off. I like images that make me think and this one certainly does that for me.
Phil Douglis03-Jan-2009 17:39
I like the way you link our own challenges to hers, and how you note the symbolic role of the worn finish on the pump handle, Nancy. We will never know her -- anonymity is guaranteed within the privacy of a shawl. But we can all appreciate the nature of her effort and what it means to her and her society. Intensive labor is part of communal life in rural India, and I've tried to characterize it here.
Nancy Good02-Jan-2009 21:58
We also see how worn the finish is on the pump handle and our hands become hers as we recall our own physical efforts and challenges. It helps us to relate even further, though we will unlikely ever "know" her completely.
Phil Douglis26-Dec-2008 19:06
You make us think about the underlying pressures in her life here, Neal. Perhaps my image is saying that she is trying to escape the daily rituals that make up her life?
Guest 26-Dec-2008 16:46
The position of the woman's head, the patterns on her sari, her boyd language, and the angle of her arm all make her seem to me as if she is running away to the left, out of the picture.
Phil Douglis19-Apr-2008 23:39
Good point, Tim -- I was simply using the cloak to abstract the person and thereby make her into a symbol rather an individual, a symbol of women's work in India. You don't see men doing such work. At least I didn't. But you make a good point here in terms of overall travel photography. So much is indeed shrouded from us. It takes a deep understanding of a culture, quality time in the country, and much hard to work to be able to photographically express the essence of a people or place.
Tim May19-Apr-2008 19:28
As we visit other cultures we only catch a glimpse of lives, so much is shrouded from us. This image symbolizes that fact for me.
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