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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Nine: The Layered Image – accumulating meaning > Flower Forest, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005
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16-JUL-2005

Flower Forest, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005

This small marble sculpture, decorating a garden outside of an antiques gallery, looks as if it is lurking in a forest of flowers. My close-up vantage point makes it seem incongruously large compared to the blossoms on either side of it. I use three layers and selective focusing to create this effect. The foreground context layer is the array of flowers at left, which seem to be screening the elephant from us. The middleground subject layer is the elephant itself, along with a few sharp red blossoms just behind it, which compliment the flowers at left. The softly focused yellow flowers provide additional context as a background layer.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/100s f/4.0 at 72.0mm iso80 full exif

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Phil Douglis07-Feb-2007 20:21
At last, a comment on my elephant with the chopped off tusks! It is in this gallery to demonstrate the importance of layering, but I can see how you would interpret it as a metaphor for the destruction of the world's elephants by those in the ivory trade. Once again, you are reading your own beliefs into this image -- which is one of the great benefits of expressive photography, and indeed, all of the arts. It gives you a chance to express and verify beliefs that are important to you. Expressive photography can offer an outlet for aesthetic validation, a way to mirror your own feelings in the works of others. Thanks, Ceci, for expressing yourself within my own expression here.
Guest 07-Feb-2007 07:20
If this isn't a perfect symbol of the fate of elephants all over the world, hunted mercilessly for its tusks of ivory! The eye seems to me filled with an unbearable grief and sadness, and endless articles in National Geographic, Smithsonian, Natural History tell of how humans and their unchecked breeding are pushing these great social creatures to the edge of extinction. We are apparently, literally, driving elephants mad with our behavior, in both Africa and India. Would that we could all live in peace, harmony and respect together, but it doesn't appear possible. A strong and meaningful photo, Phil!
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