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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Eighteen: Light and Landscape – combining personal vision with nature’s gifts > Large and Small of It, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004
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16-OCT-2004

Large and Small of It, Mariposa Grove, Yosemite National Park, California, 2004

I thought it would be appropriate to compare this young, fragile plant with the base of its ancient and mighty host – a giant Sequoia. To make this landscape “macro,” which is based largely on scale incongruity, I moved my camera so that the light will show off its frail green stems against a fire-blackened hollow in the trunk of the Sequoia. I abstract the image so that it tells the story of the Sequoia only by the illuminated texture of its rough red bark, which contrasts strongly to the smooth and slender green stems and tiny golden blossoms of the little plant. This is one of those pictures where less is more, even when one of the subjects is the largest living thing on earth.

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Phil Douglis20-Jun-2006 05:23
What a treat it is to hear from the person who made the picture of me making this picture athttp://www.pbase.com/tomtalbot/image/35242220. It has become forever linked with this one, and it has served as the basis for a very productive, if lengthy discussion. I am so glad that this image has played such an important part in your photographic education, Tom. I know that this picture, and the one you made of me making it, have proven their teaching worth many times over. I think Celia herself would tell you that she has learned much from this interchange of ideas as well. She is a perceptive analyst, and although both of us, as well as Alister, disagreed with her views on this image, she helped me define a very important aspect of scale incongruity by kindling this debate. As you say, its the hugeness of the "small of it" that makes the point here -- not a literal comparison of a big tree to a small plant. I am thrilled that this lesson is still with you, and I hope that others who may come upon this long discussion, and look at these two images, may learn as much as you have. Thanks, Tom, for adding still another voice to this nearly two year old dialogue.
Tom Talbot20-Jun-2006 03:53
Phil, a year and a half since I photographed you making this shot, I still cherish it. It is a recurring reminder of what I learned that weekend in Yosemite - look away from the obvious for the anomalies. I not only photographed you making this photograph, you took the time to explain your vision with me. I revisit this photo occasionally to keep reminding myself of the importance of vision beyond the "easy". And, I always go back and re-read Cecilia's comment, and every time can't agree with her. The grain of the sequoia tree announces it's enormousness, and to back up at all would ruin the highlight of the "small of it", which is what this photo is all about. Although I still admittedly catch myself looking at the obvious, I always hear a little voice in my head that says "look away, look down, look at the people, look at the grains of sand instead of the sand castle" - and I'll always thank you for that single moment of enlightenment.
Phil Douglis15-Dec-2004 23:52
Thanks, Alister, for confirming my belief in this image as expression. it does play with your mind, and it does make those giant trees even larger in the imagination. You can see what I was faced with in this shot that a fellow photographer made of me while shooting it:http://www.pbase.com/tomtalbot/image/35242220.

As you may notice, just prior to your perceptive comment, I had a spirited debate with Celia Lim, my "critic in residence" about this image. She wanted this picture to be an entirely different image, and thus was unable to see what both you and I see in this one. In doing so, she taught us a good lesson -- we should judge images on their own merits, not on what else you wish they might have been.

You were able to make all the connections I wanted you to make, yet she was not, because she had blinded herself to them. Light plays a major role here, as does abstraction and scale incongruity. It is one of my favorite mini-landscapes, and I thank you, Alister, for coming to it with an open mind, seeing the meaning in it, and taking so much pleasure in it.


alibenn15-Dec-2004 14:09

this so works for me. The title large and small is suitably vague, that from the thumbnail, it is not exactly clear what the juxtaposition is. I don't read you captions until I have had a good look at the image, as I like to have an unprejudiced view first. From the thumbnail and from my first looks at the full size image, I wasn't quite sure what the subject was behind the grass stems, and thought maybe it was a distant wall of the mountainside. Not until I read it was a tree did I go "Ah!!" So, if a tree can be confused with a cliff face, it's big!! From then on, looking at the image is like the faces and the vase drawing, I can see the giant tree, or I can see a cliff face. I love it..True expressive landscape Phil, making me think, entertaining me, and should I wish to embark on an intellectual journey, plenty of provoking imagery. thanks for this one..
Phil Douglis29-Oct-2004 19:30
You give me very valuable feedback here, Celia. And you do what I have asked you to do when I persuaded you to become my devils advocate, my critic in residence. What you are seeing here is a tiny plant highlighted against the jet black background of a fire scar at the base of this tree. The only way to get the full value of those tiny highlights was to shoot it at a sharp angle, not head on. As we see that plant now, the light seems to be passing through it. If I had confronted the plant head on, the effect of translucence would not have been as evident. Because of the sharp angle I use as a vantage point, we can indeed see where the tree begins to curve away from me as it reaches the edge of my frame on the far right hand side. So now you know why I am driving you crazy, Celia.

Which brings me back to your initial suggestion, based on your knowledge of the size of the base of that tree, that I move way back to stress the scale incongruity between the small plant and the big tree. The two images you link us to here, work as scale incongruity based on huge scale differences because I had much more control over my frame and vantage point than I do here. I was working very far from both of those subjects and could change focal lengths with ease and do all kind things with my frame in order to make it work. But this image, Celia is a Macro image. Once I back up, it is no longer a macro image. Either I make a macro image or I don't. I chose to make a Macro because it works. It works for me, and it works for Bruce, and it works for Marek, but it doesn't work for you, which is a shame. That is because you are expecting something else. Forget something else, Celia. I was not making something else -- I was making this picture! So judge this picture on its OWN merits, and NOT on what ELSE you wished it might have, or could have, or should have, been.

I believe that scale incongruity is also the key to this picture. This is a massive tree, an old tree. You know it is, because I am telling you and everyone else that this is a redwood tree. -- you have that context right there in writing under the picture. And if you are going through this gallery picture by picture, you also have already viewed my image of these same trees just five images earlier athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/35601775. So you should by now be fully aware of what that bark represents in terms of scale, and now you can just sit back and enjoy the contrast between the big bark, which fills the frame and the small plant, which does not. The big bark, which is red, and rough and tough and ancient, and the little plant, which is green and yellow and delicate and frail and new. It is truly what the title says it is, the "large and the small of it". As Marek said, in his briefest of all comments down at the bottom of the page: "It is."

You have fallen into a trap here of your own making, Celia, by wanting to see an entirely different kind of image, and thereby denying yourself the opportunity to savor the beauty of this one. In the process you look with disfavor on this image because it is not what YOU had in mind. You remind me of a child who wants a chocolate ice cream cone, but the store only has vanilla, and somehow that vanilla just does not taste as good, because you, Celia, are thinking about the taste of chocolate the whole time you are reluctantly eating it.

I wish I could give you that delicious chocolate cone you crave, Celia. I really do. Because the concept you propose is certainly valid. But in practice, it just did not work. The delicate plant became just another clump of grass from the distance. I would have a picture of a big tree with some tiny grass growing in front of it. And even more tiny clumps of grass as well, because the more I would have backed, up the more additional plants you would have seen on that side of the tree. If I had backed up, the light would have been terribly distracting instead of dramatically cohesive. In the Macro shot, I could use light as abstraction, and controlled it by using that black fire scar in the hollow of the base of the tree as my background. But if I chose to back up into the foreground light, that moved in and out of shadow, it would have created chaos. I am posting a link to that picture you have seen of myself actually making this photograph. It was taken by my fellow workshop participant Tom Talbot. Here is the link to it on his site, along with other pictures that Tom took in our workshop:http://www.pbase.com/tomtalbot/image/35242220. Look at the tremendous differences between light and shadow that I would have had to contend with if I had chosen to give you that chocolate ice cream cone you wanted so much to eat.

For me, the answer was obvious. Trust in the viewers intelligence that when I say "Redwood tree" in my caption, he or she will know just how big it is. And if they don't, perhaps they might have already seen my image of the same tree just five pictures earlier. And if they still don't, let them simply enjoy the scale incongruity between a frame full of rough bark against a tiny, fragile plant. Take off those blinders you have put on, Celia. Enjoy your vanilla cone. It is delicious in its own right.
Cecilia Lim 29-Oct-2004 12:27
Photographers often endure problems and challenges that are not evident to viewers. And I can appreciate the problems you were faced with when trying to make this image work without losing detail on the tiny plant. But this image is the result of the judgement call you made and I can only bring to you my experience as a viewer. I am not sure why your other images using abstraction to imply scale such as "USS Midway and Friend" http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/28253073) and "Gates, Pedro Miguel Locks, Panama Canal" http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/2545586) work, but this doesn't for me. Perhaps it is this:
--One thing about shadow and light is that they define the curvature of a surface. Shadows are beginning to emerge on the tree to the left of your frame. This is suggesting to me that the tree is beginning to "round off" to the other side, implying that it's only just about that wide . But I know it is not that small, because I've seen another picture of it. Because of this privileged knowledge, I know the tree is actually quite unfathomably huge, but the shadows are hinting to me that it's not as big as I hope it to be. This conflict is driving me nuts, and that's why I needed to see more of the tree to be reassured that what I think I'm seeing and is implied is not what I think is happening. To me it's akin to the experience of not wanting the movie to end but when you've come to the end and the pictures fade out and the black begins to fade in, and then silence.... These clues tell you that it's the end. That's not the end that I expected to see here. My mind is constantly looking for clues to reassure me that this thing is huge, but I couldn't find anything else to use as a reference for scale though. The bark texture was not a great help. I can appreciate scale incongruity through implication, but the shadows are making an implication not favourable to the kind of scale you want to imply. Perhaps I'm the only one seeing it this way. Is there anything valuable to learn here from my feedback?
Phil Douglis29-Oct-2004 03:36
Thanks, Bruce, for agreeing with my interpretation of the scene. You give us a perfect metaphor. We don't need to see the whole elephant here to know how big it is. This image is all about scale incongruity through implication, not description.
Guest 29-Oct-2004 02:18
I think the scale incongruity works well here. It calls to my imagination the sight of a mouse by the foot of an elephant. We might see only a toe and a bit of foot, but we know the pachyderm is far more than what we're shown.
Phil Douglis28-Oct-2004 22:07
Celia strikes again. Sorry you are disappointed about a picture I did not make. Beleive me, I thought long and hard about creating greater scale incongruity by backing up and showing more of this tree and less of the tiny plant to make this size comparison somehow more incongruous. But it would have never worked. It is a fact of both nature and perspective that if I had backed up and taken a somewhat more distant vantage point as you suggested, the so-called "never-ending expanse of the tree" you imagined would have abruptly "ended", and the emphasis on the detail of this tiny plant would have been lost at the same time. Believe me, Celia. I was there. I tried to make the plant take up five per cent of the image. It just did not work at anything less than what you see here. That's why I chose to move in, fill the frame with as much tree as I could, and stress that detail, permitting the viewer to IMAGINE the huge scale difference between tree and plant, instead of actually see it.

I did here exactly what you praised so highly earlier today in my Merced Reflection image in this gallery http://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/35601773). You said "You did not literally show us where the mountains are relative to the river but you've implied it by using the reflection as context. I think that's a great thing because by not giving everything away, you give us room to wonder and marvel at the size of what looms over the river rocks." I am doing the very same thing in this picture, Celia. I am not literally showing you how large the Redwoods are relative to the tiny plant, but instead implying it by filling my frame with ancient rugged redwood bark as context! It does take much imagination to figure out how large those trees are, particularly when you are given the additional verbal context offered by the caption. As we have discussed before, images do not exist in a vacuum -- all of them come to us with some kind of verbal support.

I am glad, however, that you appreciated the critical role that light plays here, Celia. Light defines the delicacy of the tiny plant. Had I backed up, the stunningly fragile detail that this light reveals would have been lost forever. Harmony does, as you point out so well, exist even between things that are extremely different.
Cecilia Lim 28-Oct-2004 19:36
What scale incongruity Phil? I am so terribly disapponted! I simply love the idea you are trying to express, but I feel you did not execute the idea to its full potential. There's simply not enough of the sequoia to indicate the incredible difference in their sizes. I had the honour of seeing a photograph of you sitting at the base of the tree taking this very picture, which other viewers here don't. And I know that the tree is 30,40,50, god knows how many times wider, (I'm not even talking about height) than this seedling! I would have just loved to see this tiny plant completely surrounded by never-ending expanse of the tree. If all we saw were just great brown expanse of bark and within this huge browness, a small tiny speck of this illuminated green seedling glowing in its shadow as you've shown here, making up only about 5% of the composition, it would have made a much stronger statement about scale. It's just a matter of moving the camera back, and in relative terms, showing more sequoia, and less seedling.

As this image has not intensely been about scale for me , it offers me other great things to appreciate. I feel you've handled lighting very delicately here. The light emphasizes the little plant and makes it stand out from the shadows of this bigger tree. To me, this image is more about survival and this tiny plant stands proud and radiant in the sunlight not ready to be dwarfed by anything bigger than it. It sends out a message that everything has its place in nature and harmony exists even between things that are extremely different.
Guest 28-Oct-2004 16:52
It definitely is.
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