First sight, Antarctica, 2004 by Phil Douglis

Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eleven: Aspects of Antarctica – a travel photo-essay > First sight, Antarctica, 2004

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06-JAN-2004

First sight, Antarctica, 2004

It was a moment hard to forget and difficult to believe. What seemed at first to be a distant bank of clouds suddenly revealed itself as cloud shrouded mountains lining the edges of great peninsula awaiting us. The colors contrast to those in the previous image, and set the stage for the snow-covered scenes that follow.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/800s f/4.0 at 28.8mm hide exif

Full EXIF Info
Date/Time	06-Jan-2004 05:50:14
Make	Canon
Model	PowerShot G5
Flash Used	No
Focal Length	28.8 mm
Exposure Time	1/800 sec
Aperture	f/4
ISO Equivalent
Exposure Bias
White Balance	(-1)
Metering Mode	multi spot (3)
JPEG Quality	(6)
Exposure Program
Focus Distance

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Phil Douglis		06-Mar-2005 07:08
Thanks, Barri. I think expressive travel photos ought to bring the viewer directly into an experience as closely as possible. Wether it be the first sighting of the Antarctic continent, or trying to buy some tangerines at a Laotian market (http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/40166533 ) I owe it to you to bring you along with me and vicariously share what I am seeing and doing and feeling by. Thank you for appreciating that point, and I hope this cyberbook will continue to give you the ideas and inspiration you need to be able to do it as well.

Barri Olson		06-Mar-2005 06:21
Phil Before I even read your description, I looked at this and what I thought to be clouds, solidified into a mountain...and that is the truth. Then I read your description. Wow. Talk about expressive. You not only showed us what you saw, but exactly how you felt at the time. That to me is incredible in this photo. Thank you. Barri

Guest		03-Dec-2004 09:20
Beautiful....has so much mood....

Phil Douglis		28-Jan-2004 20:32
Cecilia -- glad you mentioned the positive role of the "noise" in this shot. Digital photographers treat noise as if it were a disease. Last night, a fellow even posted a comment here -- begging me to use a digital single lens reflex camera in the future because my present prosumer camera was "too noisy." (It reminds me of the days when I was first starting out in photography way back in the 1960s. I used a 35mm camera, and people urged me to scrap it for a large format camera because my 35mm images were too grainy.) Such suggestions, well-meant as they are, ignore the communicative potential of texture within an image. There is nothing either right or wrong about texture -- it all depends upon how it is used to express ideas. As you point out here, the noise produced by my 400 ISO -- and by severe cropping, since those cliffs were quite far away from our ship -- creates a dream-like impreciseness that makes the scene almost surreal. If it were crisp, clean and noiseless, it would lose much of its ability to stimulate the imagination. I welcome the noise here, and also the chance to remind everyone reading this that photographs should be evaluated on the basis of their meaning, not on how they conform to standards of technical quality as defined in a laboratory.

Cecilia Lim		28-Jan-2004 19:09
Wow! This image is the perfect lead into your photo-essay about the actual Antarctic continent. It is a wonderfully evocative piece that paints both beauty and mystery at the same time. Although the photo has quite a lot of noise in it, I think it really works for this image because it makes it look like an impressionist painting. It is very dream-like and surreal , which is an apt expression of this land so distant and foreign that many of us can only dream about it. The partial cloud cover that you have captured also adds to its mystery. The distance from where you made this picture reminds us too how far this place is, but because it seems almost within reach, it creates a lot of anicipation as well. It's a "cliffhanger" that gets us hooked onto your story about this enchanting place.

Phil Douglis		27-Jan-2004 01:05
Amazing comment, Marek. At one point someone deck with me as we approached this incredible sight murmured something about "this is the way Columbus must have felt." Awe was the operative word. None of us could quite believe what we were seeing here. And you are correct about the image itself -- the contrast between those horizontal clouds and the vertical teeth of the great cliffs that drop into the water, gives the picture great strength and makes it linger in the memory.

Guest		26-Jan-2004 19:48
Your experience reminds me of the scene from '1492', when Columbus first sets eyes on the New World. I can only envy the feeling of awe you must have felt. The image has great balance and I think what makes it is the contrast between the sky's horizontal streaks and the cliff's vertical teeth.

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