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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Nine: The Layered Image – accumulating meaning > Transformation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005
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14-JUL-2005

Transformation, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 2005

Graffiti is, in itself, a layer of meaning superimposed on something else. I use horizontally progressive layers in this image to portray the transformation of an abandoned freight train into a work of contemporary art. This image reads from right to left – beginning with a layer focusing on a partially painted caboose, then moving to a middle layer of an unpainted portion of that caboose, and then culminating the most expressive layer at left – a fully painted freight car, featuring an energetic stick figure that seems to be dancing in a swirl of arrows and circles. To me, these progressive layers symbolize the fading of the railroad era -- a 19th century transportation medium with its grimly painted steel siding, forever transformed into a 21st century form of urban story telling.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20
1/80s f/2.8 at 10.2mm iso80 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time14-Jul-2005 03:17:31
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ20
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length10.2 mm
Exposure Time1/80 sec
Aperturef/2.8
ISO Equivalent80
Exposure Bias1.00
White Balance (10)
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis23-Jul-2005 02:50
No matter which way you read it, in the end the railroads lose. You are right, there is a dimension of time expressed through these layers -- graffiti is cumulative, like progressive disease. I have also used graffiti to represent metaphors of time and change in several other images in the cyberbook. In Street Art, athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/45566995 , I play past against present, and in my new "Caboose", athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/46539833 , which I shot the same evening as this image, I bond past to present. Two years ago, as part of a project for a class in digital photography I was taking at the Santa Fe Workshops, I shot "Face on the Caboose" athttp://www.pbase.com/pnd1/image/20737861 -- using this very same yellow caboose that appeared in my other pictures. This image was designed to ask more questions and fewer answers than the others, and has provoked a staggering range of opinions and ideas. Provocation becomes a common thread for all of these images, Celia.
Cecilia Lim22-Jul-2005 21:58
Phil, interestingly, on the contrary, I read this image from left to right, but it still results in the same meaning that you are trying to express here. At first glance, my eye is drawn to the vivid graffiti on the left because of its vibrant colours, the energetic swift strokes of spray paint and the curious subject of a dancing stickman. Then my eye moves on to the next layer to look for context and I discover that it's about a train. Then finally on seeing small ugly patches of grafitti on the train as my eye moves further right, I realize that this is indeed a product of disrespect and vandalism. And my heart sinks even more -- to learn that this great, long serving train that once opened up the continent to people and trade, has fallen from grace and glory to become mere scrawling pads of the 21st century!

I've never noticed until now that layers can add a dimension of time to the image. You use it here effectively to express the progression of age and change, and also to control the degree of emotional impact with them too. What a ride this has been for me emotionally, finding myself excited at first and then falling down to a feeling of sadness & disgust by the time I've wroked through the image. A great piece of provocative imagery Phil!
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