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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Thirty Nine: Juxtaposition – compare and contrast for meaning > Among the dead, St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City, 2006
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08-AUG-2006

Among the dead, St. Paul’s Chapel, New York City, 2006

I juxtapose two live people against the resting places of ten people who are not. Shooting from behind the bench, I abstract the couple, and let their body language speak for itself. I thought at first they were mourners. But then the people below those stones have been gone for 200 years. When I later walked in front of them, I saw that they were looking at digital photos on the viewfinder of their camera.

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Phil Douglis07-Oct-2006 01:21
Yes, Xin, there is an incongruity here -- the image speaks of grief, yet the facts behind the image tell us otherwise.
Sheena Xin Liu06-Oct-2006 04:41
It is ironic to read what this couple were actually doing, Phil. Without reading it, I would think they were in deep grief, probably crying and consoling with each other. Does this create incongruity between pictorial distortion and unrevealed reality?
Phil Douglis31-Aug-2006 16:57
Glad you noticed the subject placement here, Chris. I put the couple in the upper third because I wanted to stress the presence of the dead by devoting more than half of the lower portion of the picture to their tombs. If I had put the subjects in the middle of the picture, it would also have revealed more background, and there were other people back there that would have shattered the intimacy of the mood here.
Chris Sofopoulos31-Aug-2006 09:16
Very nice thought of juxtaposing the couple.
I like your framing and the angle so the couple to be at the 1/3 of the heigh of the photo.
Phil Douglis16-Aug-2006 22:25
It is interesting that you speak here of remembrance, Ai Li. This church, New York's oldest, has seen much to remember. George Washington, our first president, worshipped here. Great fires consumed the city, but this church was saved by bucket brigades every time. On September 11th, 2001, this graveyard was buried in ashes and debris and perhaps a few souls as well. It stood in the very shadows of the World Trade Center, which was just a block away. St. Paul's Chapel quickly became a rest area for thousands of workers and healers who worked night and day to find the dead and aid the living. Five years later, the chapel remains a center of remembrance, its walls covered with home made banners and posters and cards of encouragement from all over the world. And yes, the living do remember the dead here in St. Paul's burying ground -- the pictures these people are looking at were most likely made either in the chapel or the site of Ground Zero. Photographs make remembrance tangible, Ai Li. They may never forget what they saw here, and the images they are looking at could make sure of that.
AL16-Aug-2006 08:43
Cemeteries are places for remembrance of the dead by the alive, at least in my view. The couple had chosen the location for remembrance of their past moments captured on their camera. But they're also creating remembrance of their present, as they're alive this moment, and their future hope and dreams, though no one knows what tomorrow holds...
Phil Douglis13-Aug-2006 22:26
Beautifully said, Tim. As you say, death just as much a part of life as love. If this juxtaposition makes such a connection for you, it is doing its job.
Tim May13-Aug-2006 19:48
You and I are drawn to the lessons of cemeteries - here I think is one of the hopeful views - life is an arch with a beginning and an end - here framed in the stones commemorating the end is a loving couple representing hope, love and future.
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