photo sharing and upload picture albums photo forums search pictures popular photos photography help login
Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eighteen: Light and Landscape – combining personal vision with nature’s gifts > Liquid Gold, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, Arizona, 2005
previous | next
04-MAY-2005

Liquid Gold, Oak Creek Canyon, Sedona, Arizona, 2005

Oak Creek, along with it namesake, Oak Creek Canyon, is one of the most photographed sights in the American West. Yet it is difficult to express the essence of it, largely because it is often shrouded in flat light. The day’s warmest light, blocked by the canyon’s towering walls at both dawn and dusk, often never makes it all the way down to the waters of the creek itself. However, for this particular image, I was able to incorporate the golden light of dawn as it hit the canyon wall, by catching its reflection in the creek’s rippling water. I abstract the creek itself, shooting only an incongruously narrow channel of gilded water threading its way between the boulders that line the creek bed. Less has truly become more here.

I intend this golden reflection to work in metaphorical, rather than descriptive, terms. We are looking here at water, a resource ultimately as precious to man as the metaphorical gold that seems to drift upon its ripples. Fresh water is a dwindling resource, and I symbolize its potential scarcity by squeezing it as tightly as I can between those ancient boulders.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/100s f/3.7 at 44.3mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
share
Phil Douglis23-Nov-2014 16:54
Thanks, Pranav, for seeing in this image exactly what I was trying to express.
Pranav 21-Nov-2014 10:50
I think this is a beautiful image. The river looks exactly like 'molten gold', and your intention of expressing that our freshwater is limited, comes out beautifully.
Phil Douglis08-Mar-2012 19:06
I appreciate your comment, Vimala. Glad you visited my site and took the time to respond.
Vimala 08-Mar-2012 18:26
Wow! Fabulous!
Phil Douglis10-Aug-2006 18:23
Thanks, Adam, for noting the role of color contrast and "leading lines" here. Both are pivotal factors in landscape photography.
Guest 06-Aug-2006 08:09
Lovely shot. The monochromic quality of the rocks contrasting beatifully with the golden colour of the stream bed. Excellent composition with the stream leading the eye into the picture
Phil Douglis19-Jul-2006 05:36
Thanks, Ceci, for coming back to this one. If my image has led your imagination to contemplate the effect of global warming, it is doing its job. This photograph carries an environmental message, and the impact of global warming on our planet is a logical and important extension of our concerns about precious natural resources.
Guest 19-Jul-2006 04:43
Indeed! I wondered as I thought of the continents that they might still be joined, way down deep -- and the water has only risen and and risen, to create the illusion of Australia being so far from North America. I suppose if Global warming keeps marching along, the land masses will shrink even further...
Phil Douglis18-Jul-2006 19:04
I iike your metaphor of continental drift here, Ceci. And that is pretty much what is happening under all of that gold. The rocks are still joined together at their base, but the water has eroded and then filled the space between them. Is that not similar to what the oceans have done to continents?
Guest 18-Jul-2006 17:58
I am reminded of molten meta, looking at this creek in your rise'n shine lightl; and the way these rocks almost mirror each other's curves, I thought immediately about how the Australian continent was once connected to North America, and gradually "floated" away Down Under. Huge land masses on the move, with silky water lapping and surrounding and sustaining life.
Phil Douglis17-Apr-2006 07:10
Thanks, Ruthie, for the link. I thank you, too, for coming back to this image again and again. It obviously expresses ideas of value to you. Your comments are as golden as this water.
ruthemily03-Apr-2006 01:11
it might help if i actually paste the link! and then i really should get some much needed sleep. i have to catch up.
the info is athttp://www.mnsu.edu/emuseum/cultural/anthropology/Levi-Strauss.html.
you may not be interested, but it's always worth letting you know just in case.
ruthemily03-Apr-2006 00:53
i agree, and i do think it is a way to look at congruity/incongruity. many striking photographs have an element of play between opposites of one kind or another - either expected or not, although i think that it is the unexpected connections in an image that can often make it stand out (please forgive me if i'm not being very articulate, sleep deprivation is eating my brain away!). anyway, i think i have mentioned structural anthropological ideas in conversation with you before, but i found a link with an outline of Claude Levi-Strauss's ideas (no, he didn't make the jeans too!). i know it's basic, but i thought it might interest you given your fascination with incongruities!
Donald Verger06-Jun-2005 09:04
ah, gold indeed! voted, ps i have a gallery called, searching for the light, and one called ethereal, enjoy, don
Phil Douglis28-May-2005 18:56
You point up the important of contrasting subject and context here, Ruthie. The solid drab grayness of those boulders give us such a contrast. You have discovered something in my imaging that Argentina's Marisa Taddia mentioned to me earlier in her comments on my River Svir sunset athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/20822717 and in my Burmese Flower Shop image at:http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/40174227 . She calls it her theory of opposites -- she says that life is riddled with contradictions and contrasts. She says we need to have a dark side vs light side, play reality vs. illusion, contrast beginnings to endings, in order to understand the nature of life itself. I was not fully conscious of the importance of contradictions to my photographic style until Marisa kept making a point of it, and now you have come to me to make a similar point. Perhaps it is another way to look at congruity and incongruity? What do you think?
ruthemily28-May-2005 14:27
without the greyness and drabness of the stones, the water wouldn't look so beautiful. it needs those stones to emphasize its qualities. you can't have light, without the dark... and yes it is squeezing through and trying to fight the obstacles but at the end, when it gets through that last little gap, it is all going to flow out and be free.
Phil Douglis13-May-2005 22:51
Thanks, Tim, for embracing this image as you have. Ever since you and I began working in the field together a few years ago, your own way of seeing has also come to influence how I have come to see. (I may have had some degree of effect on your own vision as well. It's catching!) Your influence on my eye is readily apparent here. This image is very much in the symbolic realm you and I have discussed many times -- the balance of nature and the nature of time. I saw it first as golden water -- a precious resource being squeezed between the proverbial rock and a hard place. But I enthusiastically accept your own interpretation of this image as well, contrasting a fleeting moment of reflected light to the timeless quality of ancient stones. Images can indeed express different meanings simultaneously, which is, of course, a quality of art itself.
Tim May13-May-2005 19:15
I love the line of light made by the water along the rock. The metaphor for me in this image is that of time. This image has both the fleeting moment of dawn and the enduring time of stone. As you might guess, given me style - this is an image that speaks directly to me.
Phil Douglis09-May-2005 17:42
Thanks, Jen, for this substantive observation. I had not realized the effect that the gentle curve of rock has on the nature of the rock itself until you mentioned it. It does indeed make the rock appear more forgiving -- almost a healing feeling. And thanks, too, for linking this to my image of the dead redwood tree. Both images comment on the balance of nature and man's impact upon the environment.
Jennifer Zhou09-May-2005 13:59
Phil, this picture caught my eyes for the rich color and also the shape of the water. The hard stone even has this curves with water flowing by, making it looks not all that hard. The picture speaks about the beauty of the nature as well as the balance of the nature. And your metaphor of liquid gold bring the it to another level, it is as you did here:http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/35604128 an educational and constructive comment between nature and the mankind.
Phil Douglis08-May-2005 21:00
Thanks, Catriona, for commenting on this picture. I am delighted that you see the effect of its symbolism, colors, and incongruities. I have made that many images in Oak Creek Canyon because of the lighting problems I mentioned in the caption. My Sedona workshops are not nature photography oriented -- I am basically teaching expression to corporate communicators there, and we spend most of our time working on indoor projects and in lectures and discussion. We are only in the canyon for an hour or so each morning, so I don't have a chance to make a lot of images there to share with you, aside from this one. Glad you like it.
Guest 08-May-2005 09:12
Great picture Phil! I love the way you have captured the colours in the water. The incongruities are numerous as mentioned by Anna. You have highlighted the importance of using light to bring out colours in the water, symbolising it as a precious resource. I look forward to seeing many more from your time at Oak Creek Canyon.
Phil Douglis07-May-2005 22:16
I am glad you pointed out the unusual nature of the color itself, Anna, as well the fact that this image is a study in opposites. As you know, I am fanatical about building incongruities into my images. Incongruities are often based on the very opposites which you describe in your comment. Thanks so much for pointing this out. You have made me see this image with new eyes!
Phil Douglis07-May-2005 21:55
Thank you, too, Lara, for this kind comment. As a former participant in my Sedona "Communicating with Pictures" workshop, you know this creek all too well, so you can bring an even richer context to bear on this image. Oak Creek Canyon is indeed a contemplative place, and I tried to bring a sense of that to this image as well. The ebb and flow of the rippling water as it rides through this narrow channel certainly suggests the peaceful atmosphere that surrounds these magical waters.
Phil Douglis07-May-2005 21:38
Thanks, Bruce for making this point. The warmth of the golden waters are incongruously juxtaposed against those cold, unforgiving boulders, which creates not only a striking contrast in color, but also provokes a threat of thought -- the powerful rocks represent the earth itself, while the golden waters represent the life it sustains.
Anna Yu07-May-2005 16:37
Very unusual golden color, striking because it's not what one expects to see in the water. The symbolism can also be that of opposites, warm and cold, soft and stony, fluid and inflexible, life and non-life.
Lara S07-May-2005 16:15
This is so beautiful, Phil. The richness of the colors almost make it look like a painting and it's making me want to go back to Sedona, esp Oak Creek Canyon. Such a peaceful, contemplative place.
Guest 07-May-2005 12:41
Lovely colors - the gold gives warmth to what we would expect to be an otherwise cold scene.
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