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Jennifer Zhou | all galleries >> Galleries >> Cityscape > The Rule of Nature, Forbidden City, Beijing, China, 2004
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24-DEC-2004

The Rule of Nature, Forbidden City, Beijing, China, 2004

Over the years, the rulers of this ancient city have changed many many times. Man comes and goes, but the sun will always be there. No matter how powerful people or things are, their authority can never compare to the rule of nature.

I was inspired to make this image after seeing a similar photo in the pbase cyberbook of my teacher, Phil Douglis at http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/31309863
His image challenged me to think hard and think differently. I went to the same spot that Phil used to make his image. I was fortunate to have a sun hanging in the cloudy sky directly over the Forbidden City, and the idea came to me immediately: even the greatest of cities must bow to the rule of the natural world.

I wanna send this picture as a New Year gift to my friend Rodney, I wish him an exciting 2005! :)


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emo 23-Nov-2007 18:01
what a pritty fotograph
Herve Blandin06-Sep-2006 05:11
Damned Phil, he don't let us much to say! :-))))

Ok, the light! It is what is taking us into the picture, not the sun, and not the City. It has much of the antic patina often seen in ancient painted rolls, but where we'd expect the unchronological presence of life, trees, people, armies, it is empty. A departure of formula, which for being sensical, is nevertheless asking us what will fill and populate this empty roll, now.

Jennifer, you almost served us with a blank copy! :-)
Guest 04-Sep-2006 19:15
Different parts of China have been always so different from each other... it's not just a country, it's a continent. The variations of dialects, cultures or food, can be much more apart than most people would imagine...
Yves Rubin17-Jun-2006 06:35
Probably one of the best pictures I have ever seen of the Forbidden City! Forbidden indeed!
Ashley Hockenberry30-Dec-2005 04:03
I voted for this image. Awesome !!!!!!
+ t o r r e s 2 1 +21-Oct-2005 18:56
spot on!!!! a great allignment of factors. great story! for being such a massive presence, it is minisculed by nature! great frame.
Dom Burke20-Aug-2005 09:25
I love the haze in this shot (but not to inhale?). Very nice colours and compo.
Guest 09-May-2005 13:55
beautiful composition
Guest 05-Jan-2005 10:35
Your image Jen is magnificent, it gives the sence of a huge surface that the palace has to ocupy the mist or fogg is like it keeps the misteries that some day happened behind those walls were just a very fiew could get to see, but it also indicates the Iperialistical decadence for me combined with this small sun sticking on the upper point of the image, it is a dimm sun not a strong one that too me it denotes debility, decadence. and this strait verticl composition gives it a dramatism too.
Phil Douglis30-Dec-2004 03:18
****A truly spectacular expression of light, time, and space placed in incongruous juxtaposition to express human values. I was thrilled to see that you based this image on a similar image that I made from the same spot this past summer. I used a longer lens and a soaring bird as my focal point. You used a wider focal length and the sun as your focal point, but each of us use the vast scale of the Forbidden City to suggest the power and grandeur of Imperial China. Each of us was fortunate to have foggy weather to abstract the scene, and activate the imagination of the viewer, placing them back into another time.

At this point, however, our messages diverge. I use a soaring bird to symbolize the human spirit breaking free of the tyrannical rule of these Emperors. But you choose to use the abstracted sun to suggest that nature, not man, is the ultimate power on earth. And that is what impresses me so much about your idea here, Jen. It is fresh and thought provoking. This was once the greatest city of the Medieval world, yet it, too, must bow to the rule of the Natural World. And you do it absolutely brilliantly. Phil
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