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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty One: The Marketplace -- crossroads of a community. > Bovine Visitor, Champasak Province, Laos, 2005
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Bovine Visitor, Champasak Province, Laos, 2005

Strange things sometimes happen in marketplaces when you least expect them. It is important to recognize their possible significance when they happen and take full advantage of them. This animal suddenly came running by me at a full trot, right in the middle of a rural market. Most cattle in Laotian markets have long since become steaks and chops. This bovine visitor, however, was very much alive. I saw the incongruity of its live presence and made this shot, seconds before it brushed past me. Perhaps such things happen all the time here and the locals take it for granted. But I didn’t. I seized an opportunity to make an incongruous image.


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Phil Douglis07-Apr-2005 21:55
You always manage to add a great deal of expression to my images, Jen, because of your inventive imagination. And that is whole purpose of expressive imagery -- to stimulate the imagination of the viewer to the point where he or she comes up with their own meaning. And that is what has happened here. I never even considered the meanings expressed by the color of the earth here until you brought it up. I was concentrating so hard on the incongruity of this uninvited visitor to the market that I never saw this image as a potential metaphor for the essence of Laos itself, as expressed by cow and color together. Thank you for making a new picture out of my picture and sharing it with us.
Jennifer Zhou07-Apr-2005 14:55
Your reaction to this uninvited creature is just perfect Phil. I totally agree with Likyin's points, and was interested also in the color of the picture. The color of the anminal perfectly matches the color of the ground and the roof, this is how we describe it---yellow earth! It is the color of the harvest, it is the color of the soil, and it is even the skin color of the Laotian people. To me, both the color and the cattle symbolize this country and its people, plain without any ornamentation.

Jen
Phil Douglis20-Mar-2005 00:51
Good point, Likyin -- the animal does seem to own the place, doesn't it? And that, in itself, is incongruous. As for matters of life and death, the only one at risk here was myself. It was a close call!
Guest 19-Mar-2005 11:42
Well, I have to say, the incongruity of death and life doesn't exist in this image, but only in your capture. Instead, the most incongruity I can see from it is the "Bovine" visitor in "human" market, or, it is actually the buffalo's market with human visitors, because it strolls around in the middle like the master of it ...
Phil Douglis01-Mar-2005 02:03
Yes, a cow stumbles into the middle of a busy market, so I made sure to place it in the middle of the picture.
monique jansen28-Feb-2005 13:22
that would explain why the cow is bang-in-the-middle then!
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