Vintage Truck, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004 by Phil Douglis

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05-SEP-2004

Vintage Truck, Lisbon, Portugal, 2004

I was struck by the play of light, rich colors and fine details on this old truck parked on a busy shopping street in downtown Lisbon. To express the interplay of these assets, I decided to abstract the truck by moving to make a picture of only one of its lights, and part of its hood and radiator. I eliminated everything else – its spindly wheels, roof, and body. I had too – the more I tried to get into the picture, the more literal and cluttered it became. Conversely, the closer I got, the more emphatic its beauty, grace, engineering and style became. Abstraction usually comes down to giving the viewer less and saying more.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/160s f/4.0 at 12.7mm full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto

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Phil Douglis		16-Aug-2006 23:08
Your way of reading an image, Adam, is hardly insane. It is highly creative. (Some say there is a connection!) I like the way you see this image as an array of shape and color instead of just another old car. As for the lines leading in and out of the headlight, they are pivotal -- they give form (three-dimensional meaning) to what otherwise would be only shape. In fact, they are "un-flattening" the very image you flattened and then discarded as a car. Thanks for the thought.

Guest		16-Aug-2006 17:04
My mind flattens this image and discards its meaning as a car, which lets me appreciate it for its simple, well balanced (and somewhat in thirds) shapes and colors. What "completes" the photo for me are the two lines that extend into the headlight: the bottom at a 45 degree angle, and the top line (even though it's technically more than one line) at almost 90 degrees. (Clearly, I'm insane. Haha.)

Phil Douglis		01-Jul-2006 19:21
Thanks, Emi, for this wonderful comment. I was particularly intrigued by your remarks about the reflection in the headlight. I never studied it before you mentioned it, but it, too, is an abstraction. The more you look into it, the more the imagination is stimulated to see whatever it wants to see. I don't recall anyone else being there as I shot, but then I get so wrapped up in what I am doing that I may not have noticed the mysterious woman you see reflected here.

Guest		01-Jul-2006 07:45
Phil, This image sure works for me. Let's not talk about abstraction and imagination in the first place, I have always found that the " extractions " of cars are far more interesting images than cars as a whole in forms and shapes. Say when you check your car and look at the details inside the car, you can find a lot of interestng shapes with rich toning, which would probably make a nice drawing with charcoal. So personally, I would say its always a good choice of taking pictures of a part of a car rather than taking the whole thing. When come back to Phil's abstraction in this picture, the colours and the front light caught my eyes. The colours, as well as the shape of part of the car here, are the signs of time and age to me. Miinerva made a very good point about the reflection of the front light, which I feel the same way. "...the refelctiosn are the reflectiosn of the past or are they glimpses of the future. Are they maybe a combination of both? " The other thing I love about the reflection of the front light of the car is it actually reflected the environment(street) of that particular moment. If you take a closer look at the reflection, you might can see part of the road and a person(probably a woman I guess)which is on the left hand side of the reflecton. Not only you can see more from this picture through imagination, but also you can see more details of that particular environment in the extracted and abstracted image. Then you would probably wonder what you can't see in the picture. Like was the street busy? Was any person besides Phil standing there looking at the same car? And so on....... Emi

Phil Douglis		02-Jul-2005 18:06
The emotional impact of this image is more important than the photographic technique I've used, Don. Glad you feel it so strongly.

Guest		02-Jul-2005 07:24
all I can say is "wow"... This particular image really strikes a chord within me... Photographically fantastic, too...

Anna Pagnacco		26-Jun-2005 20:35
I am just back from Lisbon:-) The details on this shot are eye-catching. You can feel the charm of these old cars....Ciao, Anna

Phil Douglis		02-Jan-2005 04:12
Some images come to you more slowly than others, Zandra. To your credit, you did not just write it off as a superficial experience, but stuck with it, even to the point of thinking about it at your New Year's Eve party! You also are correct about my decision to move in on the car with my camera. If I had stood back and shot the entire car, I would have been merely describing its overall appearance, instead of creating symbolic meaning by abstracting it as I did. If I had stayed back, I would have also had a background filled with irrelevant "crap" -- stuff that had nothing at all to do with the car except that it was there. I liked your alternative suggestion about such a car churning in the dust of a lovely country road in with a driver in vintage costume --in that case, shooting the full car would have appropriate, set within a beautifully composed evening landscape. But it would have been a different image entirely. The abstraction may well have come from that cloud of soft dust churned up around the car, or from the shadows that may embraced such a scene as as you imagine. The fact is that I made this image on a busy city street in downtown Lisbon at midday, and as such, I had i no choice but to abstract it severely through vantage point and frame in order to express meaning. You also make an excellent point, here, Zandra, about reading images. If meaning does not come to you right away, step back from it, and come back to it later. You are right. If you look too hard at something and think too hard about it, your brain becomes constipated. And if your mind is tied up into a tight knot, the message in a picture may not come through to you. All you really needed to do to jump-start a chain of meaning in your mind, was context. And that context came to you while celebrating the beginning of a new year. New Year's Eve is a time of reflection, sentiment, and thoughts of family and tradition, and that is exactly what this photo first triggered in your mind. WHEN you came to this image, and HOW you came to it, has obviously affected the context in which you interpreted the meaning of this photograph. My abstraction, which stresses the incongruity of vintage automotive design, expresses basic human values to you -- traditional values that have come down to you through generations of your family, and which you may pass on to your own children. This image, you say, seemed to be, at least at first, like mother's milk to you. But that was only the beginning of your chain of meaning. My close vantage point brings you nose to nose with the past, and the values it represents to you. It asks questions of you, and demands that you answer them. Are these values still valid, after all this time? Or has time made them obsolete? Dare you go against them? Would that be a treasonable act against family values? You have it stumbled upon something here that is at the very center of expressive photography, Zandra. Images not only can convey meaning on their own. They also can also challenge their viewers with questions. Questions which demand answers. How you answer those questions for yourself will determine the meaning of the picture. In your second, follow up comment, I can see how you may be answering them, Zandra. You find the design of the car to be very formal, rigid and stiff. Not the free-flowing aerodynamic design of today's cars. This is no Saab, right? You say these values are really the values of the past, not of today. You go on to think about the meaning of the light reflecting off the copper frame of the old radiator. Are those reflections of the past, too? Or do they give you glimpse of the future? Or are they a combination of the two? More questions, needing more answers. Finally, you decide that these old values are not so old after all. They may be outmoded values in practice, but yet they have provided the basis for the values you still believe in today, and will in the future. This image also makes you think of your individual personal values as well, values you have had to figure out for yourself, the very stuff that makes you an individual. You seem to have found room here for compromise, Zandra, afterall. Just as those reflections blend into the color and structure of this old car, you decided that your own personal values are really nothing more than updated extensions of those very outmoded values symbolized by the design of this car. What you have done here is take an idea from nowhere to somewhere in a very personal and meaningful way. You left the image but still thought about it. A lot. And then you came back to ask yourself questions raised by symbols created by abstraction, and then found answers to them. I think you learned a great deal from this image, Zandra, and from the process of expression that my abstraction triggered in your imagination and mind.

Guest		01-Jan-2005 21:58
The stiff angels of the car, in the aspect i mentioned before, makes me think of those values that should be long gone. Those that makes people, and even countries stiff. The once we refuse to compromise with, byt maybe we should at times. Next questionis, the refelctiosn are the reflectiosn of the past or are they glimpses of the future. Are they maybe a combination of both. Even though the values are long gone it was part in shaping generations, and those genratosn built a future for themeslfes...now the future lies in the reflections and maybe our new values have some heritage from the old values to. The universal values, that those not change in content but only in form and expression. The reflection could also stand for the individual values, those notpassed on from the sourounding but those we have figured out ourself, those that makes us in to individuals. As the reflection blends with the colours and structure with the car so does these new values. They find there place without having to obsolete old values.

Guest		01-Jan-2005 21:42
This image has been tricky to analayze. At first i could not see more then a car. I had problems so see pass the object and find what it represented for me instead. So this is the iamge that "haunted" me on new years eve. I can defenatly see the advantage of coming in close as you did rather then including the whole car. Including the whole car would woule mean that you woudl include the background as well and i am quit sure that was pretty distracting or atleast unfitting for the charachter of this car. Had this car been placed on a lovely country side road bathing in evening light and with a driver in apropriate cloting, then maybe you would not have chosen this crop to bring out the charachter. Or, you still would have, as undoubtly the light would fall beutifully on this antique. This does not have much to do about your image and it's conent really, it is only me analyzing the choise for this type of crop. Now, back to the actual image as it is. As i mentioned, the reason as to why this image was tricky was cause it did not speek to me so easily, in fact it was dead quiet. I went back to it many times trying to find something. But when you look intesnly for something it has a notion of hiding. It was better to leave it and let it speek when the time comes... So there i was, celebrating the beginning of the new year when all of a sudden this image comes in to my mind, this image and my grandfather... And then i saw the connection and what this represents to me. It became clear that for me this image stands for traditions and vlaues, past on by generations. It reminded me that part of who we are are comes from those values, that has been given to my grand parents, and they have given them to my parents, who have pasted them on to me. One day, i may very well pass them on to my children. Because this message was so hidden for me i came to think of how many of these values are those we are not aware of. They are given to us with the mothers milk. Those values are the fundamentaion of the family, built up by generations. That was the old car itself that made me draw those parrarells. I then looked further in to the closness of the cropping and BAM it was as if lighten struck me. This closness can represnt two tihngs. Either the close bounds of a well functional family, or it can represent the difficulty of going against those values. Values can strenghten you just as it can cage you, all depnding on the individual and the time they live in. And as those values has been passed on by generations, at a certain time the become old and obsolet, however they also represent a part of this family and there histroy, thus breaking them may be looked upon as a treason against the family values. It looks like you got me going again Phil...have a geat evening.

Phil Douglis		14-Dec-2004 22:20
Thanks, Mikel, for this comment. You are helping me teach. The beauty of expressive photography is that each photographer can approach a subject in a different way, to express different ideas. My approach is certainly a valid and so would yours be. The would be two entirely different images. And viewers would have come away from each with entirely different feelings.

Guest		14-Dec-2004 21:26
I doo get to imagine the rest of the truck with this detail though I can since I have a previous concept about what it may look like. The abstraction serves for me and the reflexions on the metals give it volume. I think it is a nice shot though I don't know if I wold have done this perspective, personal opinion. Thinking about it without knowing the situation, wold it have been a good aproach to lower my self to the bumper hight to capture a part of the radiator, the plate and the 4 wheels below in contrast of a white almost overexposed street and the shadow of the car? That wold be an abstraction too right? It is just the image that came to my head thinking wat wold I have done in the same situation.

Guest		01-Dec-2004 17:12
I think the abstraction conveys well the whole motive.

Phil Douglis		18-Nov-2004 22:47
I am not sure what you may be telling me here, AMP, but the purpose of this picture is to explain the process of abstraction, and how we use a small part of something to express an idea. I did not make and post this picture so you could learn more about this car --but rather appreciate the beauty and style of another time. It is also, as you seem to imply here, a reflection of mankind's intelligence. Thank you for saying that.

AMP		18-Nov-2004 22:11
I don't understand the car.Also don't understand the European culture.he single is to keep view this image.I see.The art that mankind's intelligence develop.Be like the feeling of the literature renew.In regard to ordinary value in human nature.It is to deserve something to appreciate.

Phil Douglis		09-Nov-2004 19:39
You use the words "real essence" -- which are very important words, Nut. A photograph is at it most expressive when it manages to extract that part of a scene or a thing or a person that captures it's real essence. What is a "real essence?" It is the core, or soul, of something. In the case of this car, it is its style of design and construction, and an echo of the time in which it was created. By giving you just a touch of it, and letting your imagination fill in the rest, I have tried to convey the very soul of this car to you.

nut		09-Nov-2004 16:48
When you see less and think more about Vintange. You will find only the perfect combination between art and engineering on this truck. And that is the way to express the essence of Vintage. To see less, To think more. No information here but only the real essence of vintang and this is an abstract photograph.

Phil Douglis		30-Oct-2004 22:49
You and I certainly agree on this one, Nut. Too see less is to think more, indeed!

nut		30-Oct-2004 14:01
To see less, To think more. You don't have to explain what is Vintange and how good it is. It show in your photo already. I like your idea to explode my brain on this.

Phil Douglis		10-Oct-2004 23:57
Thanks, Rodney, for your perceptive comment. That's why this example is in my abstraction gallery. Abstraction not only takes away and leaves room for the imagination to work, but it also calls powerful attention to whatever is left in the image to see. And that is what has happened here.

Guest		10-Oct-2004 20:26
I see what you mean by "less is more." When one sees the entire car, they will notice it is vintage, as it is obvious. From this photo, due to you focusing in on what you wanted to express, I now am easily able to admire the craftmanship, the textures. I can imagine what it was like for them putting it all together. You can see not just the lighting, but the individual, unique qualities of each piece, and how they all contribute to the whole; sort of reminds me of an orchestra (different instruments, all joining to create one distinct organism).

Phil Douglis		03-Oct-2004 17:00
Less is usually more, Bonnie

Bonnie		03-Oct-2004 16:32
I find the simplicity in this photo striking!

Phil Douglis		26-Sep-2004 00:20
We have all seen old cars before, Bruce. But have we really appreciated their beauty? I felt this abstraction gives us chance to do just that. Phil

Guest		25-Sep-2004 18:02
Yes, indeed, less is more. More expressive, more engaging, more intriguing, more better!

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