photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Sixteen: Story-telling street photography > The observer, Dunsmuir, California, 2008
previous | next
13-SEP-2008

The observer, Dunsmuir, California, 2008

Dunsmuir, not far from Mount Shasta, is a tourist town of about 2,000 people. It still looks much as it did in the 1920s and 1930s. At the base of a hill, near the town’s main street, I found a man wearing a seaman’s cap chatting it up with visiting tourists from his perch behind a large red curb. More important, at one side of him was a large mural featuring the Sacramento River, and a magical weed was twisting its way skyward just over his head. I pulled the three elements together for this street scene. It was the most expressive image I was to find in Dunsmuir.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/200s f/5.0 at 12.7mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Phil Douglis25-Dec-2008 23:38
Wonderful comment, Kathy. If we can imagine that red thing he is leaning on as a normal sized street curb, he indeed is reduced to Lilliputian scale. His hat and beard round out that illusion nicely. We evaluate size within a photograph by comparing the scale of a subject to its context and in this case, at least, the context might well trick the eye into seeing Leprechauns.
Kathy Khuner25-Dec-2008 19:40
The fun in this pic is that there is no way I can convince my brain that this man is not from Lilliput, nor is he a Leprechaun or Borrower.
Phil Douglis05-Oct-2008 00:34
Seeing this man as a symbol of mankind in relationship to nature brings a whole new idea to this image, Jenene. Thanks for suggesting it.
JSWaters05-Oct-2008 00:05
Although man has played a pivotal part in this region, he is still dwarfed by the enormous trees, soaring mountains and raging rivers found in and around Dunsmuir.
Jenene
Type your message and click Add Comment
It is best to login or register first but you may post as a guest.
Enter an optional name and contact email address. Name
Name Email
help private comment