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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Three: Stirring emotions through atmosphere and mood. > Moonrise, Amboy, California, 2006
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11-FEB-2006

Moonrise, Amboy, California, 2006

Amboy is a ghost town, a reminder of what Route 66 used to be. Roy's Motel and Cafe stands alone along the highway under a rising moon. Its lights are no longer visible from miles away. There is not much else in Amboy -- a gas station, airstrip, garage, school, church and post office. Only the post office is still in business. The owner of a California restaurant chain recently purchased the town. He hopes to someday restore the site to its '50s ambience. Meanwhile, Amboy waits in the gathering darkness, with only a full moon for light, a vintage gas stop frozen in time. I made this image with mood and mood alone in mind. Lonely. Forgotten. Empty. Desolate. It’s all here in Amboy at dusk.

Leica D-Lux 2
1/100s f/2.8 at 6.3mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis18-May-2006 19:58
I am very much with you on this one, Jenene. I, too, am an eternal optimist. I am sure you can see that in most of my images. But there seems to be no hope for Amboy or Rob's Motel here. It is swallowed whole by nature. I love your idea of a moon in retreat, even though in fact it may be a rising moon. I made this image as statement of mood -- an emotional state of mind. All I see in this image is desolation. Just as you.
JSWaters18-May-2006 07:43
This is truly a vast and empty place. The lack of contrast and dilineation between the surface in front of Roys and the highway says there is no hope for this place. Even I, the eternal optimist, don't see the headlights as positive portenders of the future. Conversely, they seem to echo the moon's hasty retreat, to allow the town to fade into the historical mist.
Phil Douglis19-Feb-2006 23:07
We took completely different roads to reach the same point on this one, Carol. Your intimate image of Roy's Motel athttp://www.pbase.com/sveetzel/image/56205252 is iconic -- the moonrise salutes the last rays of the sun as they illuminate those cottages about to be swallowed by desert vegetation. You speak here of abandonment but in a very intimate and personal way. I speak of abandonment in terms of emptiness and desolation. You join others in speculating that those headlights might presage a better day to come for Amboy. But like you, I wonder what that "better day" would make of this place? Amboy is truly frozen in time, and I hope that it will remain so.
Carol E Sandgren19-Feb-2006 19:07
Your version of this scene is the most portraying of the emptiness around which Amboy exists. My versions are more close up and intimate and do not convey that sense of isolation. The one bright light in the distance (other than the moon), headlights I presume, to me, give us a bit of hope for the future as someone is heading for this lonely place to make it better.
"Better" though is relative I suppose, and after someone does develop and restore this place, it will no longer have the ambience and lonesme beauty that it does now.
Phil Douglis19-Feb-2006 03:23
Thanks, Galina, for reading the mood of this image as promising because of the warm colors and the open horizon. Tim also said as much in his comment (and he was there with me as I made this picture) -- he believes the headlights symbolize a coming rebirth. Some might also point to the full moon as symbol of hope. I can't argue with that view. Everyone will see what they want to see in this image. There are numerous interpretations. Although there were twenty photographers shooting all around me, this place seemed overwhelmingly alone and forgotten to me, and that is the mood I am trying to imply with this image. I am delighted when others can see it differently, because that is the essence of expressive photography. My picture is not an end in itself. It is a trigger to thought, a step in a process of communication. It is what happens in the mind of each and every one of my viewers that is important.
Galina Stepanova19-Feb-2006 03:10
The middle of nowhere... but road seems to go to unknown but promising 'somewhere', and colors and horizon line can be a symbol of promising.
Phil Douglis18-Feb-2006 03:33
Thanks, Wendy and Tim for your comments on this image. Yes, the lighting is essential to both mood and meaning. Not just the light of the fading sun, or the light of the rising moon, but the light of the distant headlines, too. This gas stop in the wastes of the Mohave Desert may well be lovingly restored someday, but at this moment it was about as lonely a place as there could be in the State of California. I thought you caught that loneliness brilliantly, Tim, when you shot just the worn out Motel cabins all by themselves in fading twilight. (See:
http://www.pbase.com/mityam/image/56193771 )
Wendy O18-Feb-2006 00:41
Perfect timing, your lighting is wonderful. Nice composition too.
Tim May17-Feb-2006 23:32
It's the headlights that are the important punctuation here for me - I see them as a light coming to the deserted - just as restoration may come to Amboy.
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