On the surface, this looks like a very familiar cliché. It is, after all, just picture of a statue of a long dead authority figure seated before his old domain. However we must evaluate an image based on what it says, not what it shows. And the more we look at this photo, the more it speaks to us. The ghostly grey color of this man of marble, contrasted to the austere brown building that soars behind him, suggests that we are looking a ghost. And that is why I made this picture. Ghosts are spirits from the past. I am sure the 19th century Irish academicians who placed the Provost before this building did not have ghosts on their mind. Yet by my choice of angle, the flat nature of the light, the grey coloration I have chosen to bring to the marble, I have created a story-telling image suggesting that his spirit may still roam the haunted halls of this old school.
Image Copyright © held by Phil Douglis, The Douglis Visual Workshops