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

A fishing net for sale in a Southern Laos marketplace offers an abstract beauty of its own. Its translucent coloration, and incongruous masses of detail stimulate the imagination. I often will look for unusual products for sale in the marketplace and photograph them in ways that offer more questions than answers. To make this image work, I removed as much context as I could. Only the two wooden bars remain of the marketplace itself, along with its earthen floor. Everything left is fishing net, which, once removed from its normal usage, can become just about anything you want it to become.


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Phil Douglis21-May-2005 00:49
I never thought of this net as a symbolic metaphor for the sea and the creatures that live in it. I now see my image in a new light, Tim -- this net seems to undulate as a wave, curling and climbing, dipping and falling in rhythmic patterns. And I also now see your allusion to the fins and tentacles that may become ensnared in these nets. Thanks for adding this layer of expressive meaning to this abstract image.
Tim May20-May-2005 18:27
Your images are so much about color and light as well as subject - As I look at this image I am transported to the river, or sea where these nets will be used. The dark gathered ends of the net dance and float across the image as they will when they are throw in the river. and the way the are gathered and they allude to the river animals they might capture. They almost seem like octopi.
Phil Douglis15-Apr-2005 18:42
Thanks, Jen, for such a delightful response. Glad you like my simple definition of art as created by expressive photography. Although it sounds so simple, the trick is in the "doing." Actually, you have often made art of your own -- and what I define here is pretty much what you do when you make it. You usually let less say more in your images, Jen, and in doing so, you often can give us a new perspective on people and places -- one that is fresh and often incongruous. And you generally do so by giving priority to human values.
Jennifer Zhou15-Apr-2005 05:27
Wow, Phil strikes again!!! I never thought we can make anything into a piece of art, and you even tell me here how to make a piece of art----to abstract, makes familiar into unfamiliar, even incongruous, and then express human values. I will write that down on my notes, great lesson for today! Thanks teacher! I will try to find my piece of art next time shooting..

Jen
Phil Douglis14-Apr-2005 18:48
Anything we see on our travels can be made into a piece of art, Jen, because art is essentially expression through some form of abstraction. If we can abstract something down to its essence, changing it so that the familiar becomes unfamiliar and perhaps even incongruous, and ultimately refer to human values we can all appreciate, it will cause our viewers to think and feel and wonder. And that, Jen, is what art is all about. Thank you for seeing this humble fishing net as an artistic expression.
Jennifer Zhou14-Apr-2005 07:00
I can't imagine a fishing net could be a piece of arts! But it is, right here in front of my eyes. The color of the net is so sensitive, you are right, Phil, it is like they has lives of their own. And you draw a comparison between the softness of the net and the hardness of the wood.
Phil Douglis04-Mar-2005 23:47
Thanks, Marek. When I first saw it, i was not even sure what it was or what it meant. I just saw the textures and colors and how it looked with the color of the ground behind it and began working on it. I soon realized what I was working with, and did all I could to disguise its function by abstracting it by removing as much context as possible.. What you see and feel here is not really a fishing net at all. It is my own abstract rendering of a product that had a life of its own.
Guest 04-Mar-2005 17:08
This is just a beautifully-abstract image Phil. The thumbnail leapt out of the page, like a fish ;-) It is almost sensory to look at, with its textures, materials and tones.


Phil Douglis01-Mar-2005 02:17
This image teaches us how to change meaning by lifting something out of its context. In this case a fishing net becomes translucent in art in the marketplace.
monique jansen28-Feb-2005 13:29
abstract and simple, a very clean image. Cannot think of another word to describe it for the moment, will add it when I think of it.
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