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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Five: Using the frame to define ideas > Old Jail, Ushuaia, Argentina, 2004
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11-JAN-2004

Old Jail, Ushuaia, Argentina, 2004

We can feel the walls pressing in upon us in Ushuaia’s old jail, now a prison museum in the world’s southernmost city. A jail is designed as a series of oppressive frames or rectangles, and I frame this wooden prison guard to intensify this feeling. His body defiantly takes its stand within a steel pen. A doorframe wraps around him from behind. To each side of him is a series of receding cell doors. A long row of steel pens lead the eye down the middle of the photo. We don’t see the prisoners, but we can imagine their presence in this stifling place. This image uses frames within frames as subject matter, a perfect metaphor for a picture from an old jailhouse.

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Phil Douglis27-Mar-2005 07:14
I tried to give a feel here for what this old prison must have been like for its prisoners. Glad you want out, Benchang..
Benchang Tang 27-Mar-2005 04:36
A well-lit prison and the jobless guard is not happy and probably leaving soon. A good sense of humor. Please let me take the liberty, Phil.
Phil Douglis22-Dec-2004 19:32
Once again, Clara, your imagination goes to work. I wanted you to feel closed in, just as an inmate would. The eye has no place to flee but to the end of the hall -- where a nasty old guard stands waiting!
Guest 22-Dec-2004 19:11
A claustrophobic sight. Which is exactly what jails are about, symbolically.
Phil Douglis29-Jan-2004 21:52
Gotcha, Lisa! The framing is so strong that it is playing tricks with your mind. The old Ushuaia Jail comes through to us with such reality that you want to believe that guard is real, too. But he's not. He is a dummy, put there to give a human dimension to the place. (You must have missed the word "wooden" in the caption!)
Guest 29-Jan-2004 19:48
Great image, bold framing with the lines leading straight to a pretty intimidating looking guard. Also, must have taken some guts to take it!
Phil Douglis27-Jan-2004 00:27
I find it fascinating, Tim, that you've compared this prison image with my Shopping Mall picture from Chile http://www.pbase.com/image/25456048). Both images rely on framing devices, both share similar body language, and both pull the viewer into the picture through rhythmic reptition and pattern. In spite of these similarities, there are strong differences as well. This photograph is, as you say, cold -- because that's what a jail is. The Shopping Mall picture is hot -- the sun almost burns a long trench into the ground. The prison guard is definitely a hostile presence, while the woman waiting in front of that store seems eternally patient.
Tim May26-Jan-2004 18:24
It is also interesting to me how important "line" is here. After all, frames are made up of lines and create lines. This image is very similar to "Silent Shoppping Mall" in your WorldisRound gallery and, while there is some sense of a similar feeling of environmental bleakness and harshness in both images, the straightness of the lines in this image add to the coldness and internal shiver this image creates. While the wavy lines created by the canopy and the blocks of shadows on the ground add a warmth and calmness. It is also interesting that both people in the images are standing with their arms folded. The guard is so forboding, partly because of the fact that he is staring at us and maybe because he is male, while the woman in a similar stance just seems patient.
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