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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Nine: Juxtaposition – compare and contrast for meaning > Moby Dick, Stearns Wharf, Santa Barbara, California, 2013
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12-JUN-2014

Moby Dick, Stearns Wharf, Santa Barbara, California, 2013

Certainly the largest sign on what is California’s oldest working wood wharf, is the huge painting of a whale hanging on the exterior wall of the Moby Dick Restaurant. When I saw a pair of visitors casually strolling by the open jaws of this hungry looking Sperm Whale, I lifted my camera and made this photograph. I had watched the women cross in front of the sign, and then pass it by. I waited for them to get about four feet in front of it, and then I pressed my shutter. The image works as a humorous juxtaposition because of the incongruous scale relationship and the positioning of the two women, who seem to have no inkling of what may be bearing down on them from behind. The sign is huge, while the women are small. The painted whale (most likely a reference to the great white whale in Herman Melville’s novel “Moby Dick.”) raises its tail to propel itself in unison with the raised heels of these unsuspecting women. Its jaws are open and filled with sharp teeth. It seems fixated on its prey. I abstract the women by shooting them from behind. They have no identity, and seem to have no concern either. While my viewers obviously know the whale is only signage, this image prods them to ignore reality, triggering their imagination by expressing an incongruous message through humorous juxtaposition.

FujiFilm X-M1
1/400s f/20.0 at 50.0mm iso800 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis18-Jan-2016 18:28
Thanks, Guest. That's why I use this example of juxtaposition in a gallery devoted to that very subject. Juxtapositions such as this are based on incongruities in size, scale, and purpose.
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