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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty One: Ruins and wrecks: photographing the rusted, busted past > Ghostly dream, Bodie State Historical Park, California, 2006
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21-OCT-2006

Ghostly dream, Bodie State Historical Park, California, 2006

This image combines reflection and reality to convey dream like fantasy. I pressed my lens against the front window of a long abandoned house in the Bodie ghost town, and exposed for the light coming in from a side window. Apparently there must have been some space between my lens and the glass of the window because haunting reflections showing other buildings are superimposed on the brownish wallpaper inside of this room. The resulting image is a ghostly dream, a vision of past and present that goes right to the imagination of the viewer. It is an image I had never planned to make. It was, in fact, made for me by pure chance. I will be glad to accept it, however.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
1/400s f/5.6 at 33.0mm iso100 full exif

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Phil Douglis24-Nov-2006 18:35
Thanks, Mo, for commenting on the role of chance here. I have often said that there are no lucky shots -- that luck is really the residue of design. Yet I also recognize that there are elements of chance at work in every image. It all depends upon how well we can manage chance. In this case, I recognized the potential for an expressive image here. By shooting through a pane of glass, and using another window as an interior light source, as well as having that ornate Victorian era wall paper as subject matter, I set the stage here. I just did not know what was going to actually show up or not show up in the image. I "worked" the situation until this magical image appeared. As I mentioned to Ai Li, I created the circumstances -- and this image just showed up!
monique jansen24-Nov-2006 14:28
Very haunting and glad to note that sometimes your images are made by chance too.
Phil Douglis06-Nov-2006 18:59
Thank you, Ai Li, for appreciating the nuances of this image, which is one of more abstract images I was able to make at Bodie. It is the ultimate image of a ghost town, because it is full of ghosts. You are right -- I never planned this image. It happened. But I created the circumstances that made it happen, appreciated the result, and now am sharing it with you. Thanks for validating the communication process by telling me how the dreams and flashbacks in this image affect you.
AL06-Nov-2006 10:22
A wonderful presentation of a dream, or memories, even if not planned. The window seemed to be a medium producing multiple flashback, to and fro the past and the present. Haunting. Mesmerizing. Intriguing.
Phil Douglis31-Oct-2006 18:28
The wallpaper does suggest trees, but those trees are wrapped in the desolate dream known as Bodie. Not even the bright light shining through what you call the dirty window of neglect can bring this place back to life.
JSWaters31-Oct-2006 17:27
The wallpaper suggests abstract trees and greenery to me, reminding us that the reflected house was once full of life. It's sense of history is on display, though, with the bright light shining through the dirty window of neglect.
Jenene
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