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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Eight: The camera as time machine: linking the past to the present > Vanished museum, Meteor City, Arizona, 2006
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10-JUL-2006

Vanished museum, Meteor City, Arizona, 2006

At one point during it’s nearly 70 year run, the Meteor City trading post offered tourists a museum of western relics, both real and imagined. The museum has long since vanished. Its fading and disjointed plywood sign, along with a few steer skulls, lie unnoticed in a walled-off storage area behind the trading post. I was able to make this photograph through a small gap in a fence. This museum once provided visitors with a look back into time, and now it, too, has disappeared into the past. This image brings it back to the present in a fragmented yet surprisingly cohesive form. A white diagonal metal pole unites the three long dead steers, while a large log and an enormous rope create a layer linking their skulls to the sign. Perhaps this scene offers us a more authentic look into the past than the museum did.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ30
1/500s f/8.0 at 88.8mm iso200 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time10-Jul-2006 12:59:05
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ30
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length88.8 mm
Exposure Time1/500 sec
Aperturef/8
ISO Equivalent200
Exposure Bias
White Balance (10)
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis19-Jul-2006 21:52
Three of my favorite analysts weigh in on this image. I like the way you divide the image into past and present zones, Jen. And how you link history to a long rope that never ends. And Celia -- you add great enhancement by noting the brown horn pointing up to the museum sign -- a ghost scratching at its past, indeed! And finally, Jenene --for also zeroing in the metaphor of the long rope that ties together an abandoned museum, and coming up with a thread of memory, which is also, as Jen points out, history itself. When I made this image, I was thinking of all three of you, and how you would interpret this image. You did not disappoint me. Thanks to you all.
JSWaters19-Jul-2006 18:30
Is there anything more identifiable with the 'old southwest' than a blanched bovine skull? (Well, maybe a saguaro cactus) The long rope intrigues me. It seems to be the only object in the image that is anywhere near its original state. Maybe it too, represents a link past to present, a thread of memory.
Jenene
Cecilia Lim19-Jul-2006 14:54
This is a great effect of juxtaposition! If there's any thing that symbolizes the death of the museum, these three dead skulls are it! I also see something else that links the steers with the sign - the brown horn of the left skull points upwards , blending into the brown lines that run up and down of the letter "M". A ghost scratching at its past perhaps...
Jennifer Zhou19-Jul-2006 08:36
I particularly like this one Phil! Seems everything is randomly placed here, but it looks like being arranged just the way it should be... Maybe that is the beauty of random. The history is like the long rope seems like never ends, but when we look back, there are always something lies in the corner that we almost forget... Your camera did take us back to the past, and you do that also by using the help of the light.. The photo is cut into two parts, one is the past in the shadow, one is the present under the bright sunlight..
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