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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Three: Expressing human values > Bricklayer, Three Gorges Dam Project, Sandouping, China, 2004
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01-JUL-2004

Bricklayer, Three Gorges Dam Project, Sandouping, China, 2004

Workers are still doing brickwork at the massive Three Gorges Dam visitors center on the Yangtze River. (This fellow seems to be taking a break at the moment.) The opposite of work is rest. Both are basic human values. I organized this image around those rhythmic patterns of bricks but this man is in no great hurry to get to them.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/1250s f/4.5 at 17.6mm full exif

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Phil Douglis24-May-2006 22:39
Thanks, Jack. I tend to see geometrically. I look for lines and curves to lead the eye in and out of my images all the time.
Guest 24-May-2006 22:29
The geometry of this one takes my eye instantly. They are all appealing!!!
Phil Douglis25-Mar-2005 02:52
I agree, Benchang. Everyone brings their own interpretation to bear upon an expressive image. I am glad you feel that I've made this fellow's job seem to be easier by releasing my shutter as he stopped working to take a brief break. And yes, we should bring a sense of humor to our photographic expressions -- a good laugh can make a tough job easier to take.
Benchang Tang 25-Mar-2005 02:32
A picture echos differently in different people. To me this picture makes the the project simpler and easier( read the title), and the curved walls of bricks are more like the walls of a spillway or diverge chanel. And the worker seems relieved of his hardship of layng these bricks. A sense of humor.
Phil Douglis13-Jan-2005 00:31
I hope you never to work a job as messy, or as vast, as this one, Zandra. Be thankful your boss does not make you dig for a living!
Guest 12-Jan-2005 21:28
Did not know it was the largest dam in the world...and i who in my mind compared it with one task i had at work once...if only my boss knew how i really felt about that...like building the biggest dam in the worl...by myself. Actually, that is a striking comaprison for what i felt hehe. I think i'll tell her some day and point her to this photo.

Yes, those were the words i was after.
Phil Douglis12-Jan-2005 20:41
Thanks, Zandra for adding two more important human values to this image: unmanageability and indecisiveness.
(I hope those were the English words you were trying to find. If not, I've put them in your mouth anyway!) They join Mikel's suggested human value "revenge" as my favorites. I agree with your feelings entirely here -- if I was the only guy building the largest dam in the world, I would certainly consider my job unmanageable, and I would be extremely indecisive about how to go about doing my task. Glad this image has stimulated your imagination to feel these things, Zandra. That was my intention.
Guest 12-Jan-2005 13:17
In this image i get the feeling that the worker is over whelmed by the task...As if he is looking out over it and is trying to decide if he is to give up or not. Is it laziness…I don’t get that feeling. It seems more like he is feeling as if he has been given a task to big for him. I am looking for an exact word or phrase but I cannot figure out what it is called in English. I find the meaning very strong here though. This image speaks to me as a person, especially since I have been experiencing the feeling I try to describe, very clearly…how the heck am I going to finish this project in time with the resources I have, or rather lack of resources…He doesn’t seem to know where to start. What do you say in English when you cannot make up your mind? I get the feeling he cannot decide where to start
Phil Douglis24-Dec-2004 03:45
Thanks, Mikel, for adding still another message to this image. When I took it, I had no idea there could be so many ways of looking at this photograph. I love your interpretation -- one man, asked to build the world's largest dam by himself, decides that the only way out of this mess is to do nothing! The human value in your interpretation is most certainly "revenge!"
Guest 23-Dec-2004 22:37
The truth is that the isolation of this worker in the image gives me the sence like he is the only one to construct the dam. It seems like they geve him an impossible achievement and as such he acts as saying: 'well, this is impossible so I better take it easy' :)))
Phil Douglis03-Dec-2004 21:06
Another think this image does, Clara, is put the viewer into the role of this worker. By shooting a person from beyond, it is often easier for us to identify with them, and face the same challenges, in this case at least, as this fellow does!
Guest 03-Dec-2004 19:36
"I am the boss, let's take it easy!". He knows he's not, but his body language says he wants to believe he is. We get the right frame and perspective.
Phil Douglis09-Nov-2004 19:41
Break, indeed. One wonders how much this guy's day is work and how much is break!
nut 09-Nov-2004 17:19
Break.
Phil Douglis06-Nov-2004 22:53
You took the words right out his mouth, Nut!
nut 06-Nov-2004 22:23
I heard he said "Well, I am tired. Break for a while, let see...how good it is. Not bad, not bad
well done".
Phil Douglis11-Aug-2004 05:22
Yes, Henk -- it's a common approach. By shooting the subject from behind, you can often make viewers feel as if they, too, are facing the same issue or problem. The New York Times photographer George Tames made a very famous photo of President John F. Kennedy from behind, featuring him studying something while framed within a tall, elegant White House window. Kennedy was backlit, and seemed to have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Those were perilous times, and anyone who looked into that photo was forced to share Kennedy's burden as well.
oochappan11-Aug-2004 00:24
I forgot one thing .... it's like looking over his shoulder to look together with him what he has done here ....
Phil Douglis10-Aug-2004 01:41
Hi, Henk. I very much appreciate your comment regarding the outside circle of bricks ending next to the worker resting on his shovel -- I had never looked at those circles as a "target" before, but I guess it is.
oochappan10-Aug-2004 01:13
My first impression was that this man was taking a break to get an overview from what he had done so far and what he still have to do. Indeed I picked out this gallery now as I very fond of human values induced in a photo. Here the nice thing is that the outside circle ends up by the worker so automaticly to one the targets man-work. Not emphasing the work f.i. by more red coloring the bricks maintain here a good balance between work and man so that your eye-travelling is challenged to travel between them.
Phil Douglis21-Jul-2004 23:51
Thanks, Wendy. That's why it's in my "Human Values" gallery. I was fixated on the fact that he was leaning on his silent shovel while all those bricks needed setting -- yet Tim also pointed out his independent nature -- trashing the yellow hard hat and wearing the straw hat instead!
Wendy O21-Jul-2004 23:42
I love this for the lines, color, composition and humanity.
Phil Douglis16-Jul-2004 18:08
Yes, now that you point it out, this juxtaposition of hats has just as much to say as my statement about the nature of work vs. rest. The interplay of the two hats, both of them strikingly yellow, makes the point about the natural independence of the Chinese worker. He much prefers his own comfortable hat -- the one he has probably worn all his life -- to the hard-hat imposed on him by the workplace, assuming, of course, that the hard-hat belongs to him. (I wonder if China has the equivalent of our "OSHA" rules?) Your valuable comment shows us still once more that photographs can make a number of points simultaneously.
Tim May16-Jul-2004 17:19
As you know I notice details and for me an interesting juxtaposition in this image is the abandoned hard hat and the man in camouflage wearing a traditional straw hat.
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