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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > Cracked, Paris, Idaho, 2006
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25-SEP-2006

Cracked, Paris, Idaho, 2006

They boarded up the windows to keep the rain and snow out of the place when the glass broke. Perhaps it helped prolong the inevitable. It is now obvious that time is catching up with this place. It’s crumbling. We can read the eventual collapse in that crack, which I’ve isolated and emphasize here to read the fortune of an abandoned building in this small Idaho town.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
1/200s f/5.6 at 15.9mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time25-Sep-2006 11:39:11
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ50
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length15.9 mm
Exposure Time1/200 sec
Aperturef/5.6
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.66
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis06-Nov-2006 17:02
I like your phrase "sending out a signal" Ai Li. That is exactly how I felt. This building was indeed reaching out out for help. The cracks are like pleading fingers. Alas, no help will come -- the building is obviously no longer maintained or even cared for. It is abandoned. Yet this image can make us think about what this building once represented -- someone's pride and joy and livelihood.
AL06-Nov-2006 07:14
It's interesting to observe that the rest of the wall was pretty intact, bringing our attention even more to the cracks. Cracks are a prelude to something failing the test of time and environment exposure, about to fall into pieces. It's sad that nothing was done here to patch up the cracks. Felt that the building was sending out a signal, as if the cracks were its fingers trying to support the window and reaching out for help.
Phil Douglis31-Oct-2006 18:02
I love your insertion of denial here. Yes -- the building is covering its "eye" while the rest of its world slowly gives way around it. And my imagination heard that very groan as I made this image. Thanks, Jenene, for your magical words -- they add a delightful resonance to my photograph.
JSWaters31-Oct-2006 16:43
If you could hear a building actually groaning with the weight of it's demise, this would be the building. The window, the eye to the outside world, is covered in denial of the inevitable.
Jenene
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