Face on the Caboose, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2003 photo

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery One: Travel Abstractions -- Unlimited Thought > Face on the Caboose, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2003

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17-MAR-2003

Face on the Caboose, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2003

As part of a project for a class in digital photography at The Santa Fe Workshops, we were taken to a railroad yard littered with abandoned and obsolete trains. I thought this mysterious face stenciled on an old caboose best captured the mood of the place. I abstracted the caboose by taking out as much of its structure as I could, leaving only a suggestion of its metallic side, and the shadow of a control wheel.

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1/640s f/5.0 at 7.0mm full exif

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Phil Douglis		06-May-2018 18:20
Thanks for this comment, Merri. Your words are much appreciated. To some, this photo would be simply a depiction of graffiti painted on to a caboose. Yet you saw this face as "elegant and spare," while I saw it as part of the mystery that surrounded these abandoned trains. The image is intended to make us think and feel, rather than simply describe a fact.

Merri		05-May-2018 21:23
I lived for awhile at the end of a spur where freight cars were occasionally parked. Some of the cars had pretty astounding graffiti art on them. This suggestion of a face is so elegant and spare. The tight focus provides the context of _what_ the face was painted on (I recognized it as a rail car), yet doesn't overwhelm or distract from it. And the rough, slightly rusty texture of the metal provides depth to the face. A very original and unique photograph.

Phil Douglis		16-Jun-2007 05:32
"Theatre of Shadows" -- a wonderful title, Sun Han. What is real? What is illusion? These questions are at the center of this image.

Guest		16-Jun-2007 04:11
among all the other shadow works in this gallery, this is the most ghostly one, there are several layers of shadows here, the spray, the stripe, the wheel, and the photo itself a projection of shadow, although nowaday we use no camera obscura, it's a theater of shadows.

Phil Douglis		01-Jul-2006 19:30
Thanks, Emi, for discussing this picture with us. You are right. The human values expressed by the face in this picture carry most of the expression. But is my decision to abstract the caboose as a whole, and limit the image largely to the face and its immediate context, that makes this image express the ideas and feelings you are reading about here. As you continue to learn about photographic expression from my cyberbook, Emi, you will find that the images that have the strongest effect on the imagination are those that combine abstraction, incongruity, and human values, just as this one does. I look forward to working with you as you gradually find your way through all of my instructional galleries.

Guest		01-Jul-2006 10:03
So far, from the back and forth commantery and mails between Phil and I among these days, I am told the most important things of expressive photograhy are abstractions, incongruities and human values.( By the way, I am still in this abstraction chapter and havent read anything in the incongruities and human values chapters yet. Just wanna go step by step, can't put too much in my brain all at once. So I hope I am not mistaking your points Phil. ) While abstractions and incongrusities still pay their parts to the picture, I do think that what draws us so much attention to this picture is the human values factor. When I first looked at this picture, I found it kinda creepy. The incongruities and the abstractions did that to me. Then I continued to read the people's comments and I agree all those they mentioned, like trapped crying soul and things like that. Nevertheless, besides all the wonders and knowing that abstractions and incongruities were working on me, there was a question lied behind. Then I began to think, if I removed all the abstractions and incongruities in the picture, would I still pay attention to this picture? Would I still find it expressive? How about if that stenciled human face appears only on a drawing or a piece of paper, or even if that stenciled human face is presented by a real person, not a stenciled image( means if we see a real person with a face like that in the picture )? In those cases, the wonders, curiousity and imaginations would still be working among the viewers(us). It is because the human values is involved and its also the most important part in this picture. Emi

Phil Douglis		07-Mar-2006 17:33
Thanks, Rod. Glad to have turned on that light.

Guest		07-Mar-2006 12:31
Ok, now I see what you mean....the lights are now turned on for me hahahaha. Thanks for your explaination, and patience! :)

Phil Douglis		07-Mar-2006 03:35
Thanks, Rod, for your question. Sometimes, expressing meaning can simply be a matter of conveying a particular mood that best defines the nature of a place or person. This old railroad yard was haunted with memories of another time. This face was on the old caboose, screaming at us for no particular reason, seemed haunting as well. For me, as I said in the caption, it best captured the mood of the place. I hope that it will stimulate the imaginations of my viewers to come up with their own meanings, and as you see, a number of them have.

Guest		07-Mar-2006 02:48
Hmmm, I see what you mean, in general, Phil. But this photo, to me, is quite different from the others in this gallery. Most of the others, to me, show abstraction examples to convey some meaning (e.g., the horse photo uses abstraction to show its power). This photo clearing is a great example of abstraction, but my question is "what did you want this abstraction to convey to the viewer?" In other photos, you demonstrate, and tell us. In this one, I see abstaction, but no true meaning it is conveying. When I vew he comments of others below, I see they like the lines, they like the colors, they speak of components. None speak of the meaning they obtained, as they do for some other photos in the gallery. It's possible this photo's meaning just escapes me.

Phil Douglis		28-Feb-2006 23:00
You make a very valuable point here, Rodney. Abstraction forces a viewer to create their own meanings for images. When we abstract an image, we invariably leave things out of it, as I do here. I want my pictures to ask questions and allow the viewer to supply their own answers. And those answers are usually conditioned by the context in which the image is presented, as you say in this comment. No photo descends from the sky untouched by human hands! All photos appear to us within a particular context: in an exhibition, a book, a magazine, a newspaper, a pbase gallery, a family scrapbook, etc. They are conditioned by the other images they appear with, and also by the captions and headlines and titles that are given them. Or by accompanying stories that they may illustrate. We must take that context into account when reading an image and coming to our own conclusions about it. You and I have had this discussion before -- when you were looking at an image of mine as a stand alone work of art, while I had intended it to be seen as a teaching example in a particular gallery. You came to conclusions that were quite different than what I intended. And you learned a great deal from that experience. You can still enjoy viewing images in a vacuum, if you wish. But you also should carefully consider the context in which they are presented to get full value from the image.

Guest		28-Feb-2006 19:51
This is another image I have been looking at almost daily, for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I tried to form an opinion of what the photo says to me before reading your comment, and the comments of others (and the replies to them from you). I find what the photo tells me is really based on the gallery it is in. When I look at this photo, I knew in advanced this photo was to demonstrate abstraction. Thus I looked for it. I saw the absraction, but 'felt' confused as to what the photo is trying ot tell me (without having read your comment under the photo). But then I decided to look deeper for meaning. I came to the conclusion, this one photo would tell me different things, depending on the gallery it is part of. If this photo was part of a gallery about "Chinese who built the railroads" the photo would speak to me of child labor, and how souls of children who died in railroad accidents still are part of the railroad system. If the photo was about "Old trains at an amusment park" the photo would tell me the train misses the kids, and the train is crying. If the photo was part of a gallery about "The Holocaust: how Jewish children were forced from families" the photo would be very very haunting, like souls of children still remained trapped on those trains used to transport them. So, I am not sure how this photo makes me feel. The feeling would be in context of the gallery it is part of. It works great as abstraction, but it also works to teach many meanings can be gained from the same photo, depending on the context it is given in.

Phil Douglis		17-Apr-2005 02:58
Thanks, Ruth, for commenting on this image twice. Your views are refreshingly unique, providing insights that nobody else has given us to date. As you can see, this picture has obviously struck an imaginative chord with its viewers, which was my intention. Your most telling phrase is your final comment. You can relate personally to the message you defined, and that is why you saw it as you did. An expressive image can function as a mirror. You have seen aspects of yourself lurking within this photograph. I had no intention of doing this for you, yet that is what you have come away with here. Our imaginations take things very personally.

ruthemily		16-Apr-2005 21:26
if we imagine where the body of this lady would be, it is perfectly fitting behind those white "bars". she is trapped and oppressed. the rivet type things around the edge are like nails in a coffin of sorts, hammered in to ensure she cannot escape. there is so little detail of the figure, but she seems such a dominant part of the image. it is those few stencilled details that speak. and they speak loudly. there are only a few details but they say such a lot. the expression " a shadow of my former self" comes to mind. the expression is one of desperation and longing, perhaps resignation that she is under someone or something's control and domination and there is nothing she can do. she is trapped. one small tear rolling slowly down her cheek....that also gives me the impressed of resignation. the darker shadows on the right and coming across the top as a sort of frame, boxing her in. and the shadow of the wheel. we don't need to see the whole thing, even just a shadow is powerful enough. an implication of the true power in control and domination. or perhaps a sign that control and domination are powerful, but in these sorts of cases when used to oppress another person, are usually carried out only by people who are insecure and unsure of themselves, by people who are indeed only shadows themselves. i can see two meanings there. this says to me "sit back, shut up, i make the decisions". the imagery of the a driver, with the face painted onto "tracks". it's so so powerful and amazingly poignant. i guess in a lot of ways i can relate to this message, perhaps that is why i see it the way i do.

ruthemily		16-Apr-2005 17:10
this has struck a chord with me. i don't want to read the comments yet, i want to think about it and come back to you with my own properly formulated ideas. for now i will just say, it screams CONTROL and DOMINATION to me. the paint has dripped, it looks like a tear. what a photograph, Phil! outstanding.

Phil Douglis		19-Dec-2004 04:55
Thank you, Walt, for your thoughts on this image. We will never know who put this face on the old caboose. Nor why he or she put it there. It is, just as you've said so well, a desire of someone to cry out and share a bit of themselves with us. I get a feeling of a lost soul here, too -- probably because the face is incomplete and fragmented. In the end, what I liked most about this whole experience was the sense of mystery that surrounded both the subject itself and my rendering of it. It is graffiti that asks us the questions, and we can come up with any answer we wish, and be equally satisfied. As such, I made this photograph as food for the imagination of the viewer. That, to me, anyway, is one of the most important functions of expressive photography.

Walt McNeil		19-Dec-2004 04:39
I love to shoot graffiti. I see it constantly in just every place that I visit, and try to capture the effect with my camera, and also identify it's reason and need. Most who do such work, are souls seeking recognition, for some part of their life, be it artistic talents, or in memory of another person or event,a message for someone else, or maybe just in their need to create something of beauty. When I see this picture, I wonder; who was the person that made the drawing? What were they trying to say? Was it of someone that was loved and lost? Or maybe of themselves, crying for recognition. What was it that drove this person to make such an image, in such a place. So basically, I think of it as self expression, a desire to share something of themselves with the world. Maybe of pain, of a lost soul looking for love, or compassion. Lastly, I admire the color, and the shadows; something to catch the eye, and to entice one's imagination.

Phil Douglis		14-Dec-2004 23:30
Hi, Mikel. It's not really a scrap yard. These are trains, not junk. But they are no longer used. And these are ghostly trains, because their crews and passengers are largely gone from the face of this earth. And speaking of faces, why not a ghost as well? If the purpose of abstraction is to energize the human imagination, give it full reign.

Guest		14-Dec-2004 23:07
Great picture, in this case I thought from the beggingin that it was a train, don't quite know why. But when I read that is was a scrap yard I idetified this face as a ghost. As ghost as these trains are now in the scrapyard.

Don Guo		04-Dec-2004 07:53
Great capture!

Phil Douglis		01-Dec-2004 22:55
Your interpretation picks up where Nut (from Thailand) left off. She said it was the crying spirit of a young woman without any hope of escape. You say it comes from the past, through abandoned materials, to scream at my camera, and through my camera, scream at the world. Thank you for this idea -- you have given me much food for thought.

Guest		01-Dec-2004 18:03
great take. is like an apparition, some child soul coming from the past to give a message through the abandoned materials. is someone paying attention? obviously your camera.

Phil Douglis		19-Nov-2004 20:24
Good question, AMP. You ask if I form my ideas about what I am trying to express before I take the picture, or just act on instinct and draw my ideas from what I have captured. It works both ways. The face on the side of this old railroad car drew my attention. I felt as if the car was trying to speak to me. What was it saying? My idea is mysterious and open to interpretation -- which all comes after I pressed the shutter.

AMP		19-Nov-2004 18:06
Is filled with imaginary of image sign. I am curious, you is at take to have the viewpoint at that time? Or....After the event, produce some viewpoints? When you take,have thought the artistic conception of good expression?Then you press the shutter, is?

Phil Douglis		29-Oct-2004 22:14
You are the first to interpret my expression in this image as a crying spirit of a trapped woman. And I can see why. Those white stripes could well feel like a prison to her, and her expression does indeed seem as if she is weeping.

nut		29-Oct-2004 18:43
Crying spirit of young woman without any hope to get out.

Dan Chusid		30-Dec-2003 21:38
Very nice. Looks like something I would shoot Phil. I'm always on the lookout for the world between our own. - DC

Phil Douglis		03-Dec-2003 20:15
Glad to see that this image is working on your imagination. I enjoyed your on again, off again suggestions regarding the position of that face. There is no one best place for that face -- there are many ways of positioning it that would be equally effective. I put it where it is because it worked for me. I am glad it works for you as well. As for "less is more," you are correct -- Mies said it first. Phil

Guest		03-Dec-2003 14:27
"Less is More". You just reminded me of Mies Van Der Roh, the architect. Yes, it's the high quality of the chosen entity which can provide abundant significance. If I have to criticize such an approaching perfect image...oh no i can't. A moment ago, I did feel a little bit imbalance and though about adding something blurry and dark around the left bottom corner. But, no, I don't think it's a good idea now. If only I could move the face a little bit to the left, such as one and a half the distance between 2 nails there.

Phil Douglis		11-Oct-2003 03:05
Jane -- Regarding your cogent observation: "everything counts" -- I photography deliberately and do all I can to make sure that less can be more. Phil

Guest		07-Oct-2003 20:56
like Waynette, I find myself returning to this one.. a favorite. Every part counts.

Phil Douglis		03-Oct-2003 02:10
Thanks, Waynette, for your comment. Without the light in the right place, this photograph would not have worked. It's the shadow of the equipment at lower right that counterbalances that mysterious face.

Guest		03-Oct-2003 01:36
This is becoming one of my favorites of yours. I have viewed it several times and love the graphic lines and color of this image.

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