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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty: When walls speak and we listen > Underpass, Montreal, Canada, 2009
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21-SEP-2009

Underpass, Montreal, Canada, 2009

This underpass serves as a makeshift home for a number of homeless people in Montreal. They have left their marks on its walls – graffiti that expresses their sense of identity and purpose. Perhaps that purpose is just to get through another day – that may be why a white chalk line runs along the walls and through the arches. I used a 14mm wideangle lens to make this image, coming as close as I could to the arch, yet still including the litter on the ground and adding dimension by reaching through the arch into the next vault, where someone has left graffiti that itself is dimensional in form.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-G1
1/40s f/4.0 at 7.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis21-Nov-2009 00:29
The colors are wonderfully muted here, Tim -- giving the letter forms and those exclamation points room to express themselves. It is almost as if the graffiti artist who did this had training in the arts.
Tim May20-Nov-2009 22:48
Sometimes images of graffiti are almost too much for me - the richness of color and design - but here I am struck by the power in simplicity. The white (chalk?) lines on either side of the image draw me lightly into the image, and the exclamation marks seem to be the focal point.
Phil Douglis09-Nov-2009 20:56
Thanks, Francois, for your kind words on this image. I am sure Claudia will be delighted with it --if not for her, this image would not exist.
François Hamon08-Nov-2009 20:42
Great image, great contribution between to great photographers... V
Iris Maybloom (irislm)27-Oct-2009 20:53
An archway through which we enter the the home of the homeless...a sad reminder, oblivious to geographic boundaries, of the conditions under which some people exist. I wish the heart graffiti on the left offered some hope, but economic conditions, as they are, do not provided us that luxury. It makes the presence of that heart so much more poignant.
Kathy Khuner27-Oct-2009 17:15
What a photo! The painted golden archway is so powerful and poignant. To me it is a symbol of poverty and suffering and also of hope and gratitude.
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