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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Sixteen: Story-telling street photography > Rainy day, Casablanca, Morocco, 2006
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08-DEC-2006

Rainy day, Casablanca, Morocco, 2006

Our first day in Morocco was miserable. (Fortunately for us, it would be the only day of rain we had on the three-week visit to Morocco.) I made the wretched weather the subject of this picture. Shooting from the inside of a dry parked car, I used a long telephoto (420mm) to focus on a distant figure waiting to cross a busy downtown Casablanca street in a driving rain. I used four layers to express a sense of patience, loneliness, and frustration. The first layer – the wet pavement in the foreground – leads into the image. An abstracted man, shoulders hunched and hands thrust in pockets, stands on a curb next to with a parked bike. This is my subject layer. Blurred cars rush past him in the third layer. The fourth layer is a series of surreal background reflections in the windows of buildings across the street. This image could be a metaphor for the nature of life itself -- we often must face the world alone, and somehow we must have the patience to endure, and make the best we can out of it. Eventually, the traffic will slow; the man will cross the street, and find his way to shelter.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/40s f/3.7 at 88.8mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis05-Jun-2007 20:43
Any image that gets a dose of back to back commentary from the two Cecilia's on the same day, is lucky indeed. I love your take, Ceci, as always. This image is rich in dislocation, as you note, and replete in tensions as well. Celia L. calls it a metaphor for life itself. And you see it as a metaphor for our world to come, when we have run out of oil and are forced to use our legs as transportation. Urban scenes such as this are unusually rich in symbolism, and when it rains on them, those scenes can become moody and miserable, as both of you point out. I also found it quite an incongruous rendition of Casablanca, a city that holds a mystical, romanticized sway over western imaginations, probably due in part of that 40's film. But it is nothing at all like we imagine it to be -- this is a far more representative scene. Thanks, as always, for coming to my images and giving us your insights.
Guest 05-Jun-2007 20:00
I had to come and look at your photo, Phil, after being directed to it in Celia's new gallery; it's another take on another rainy day, replete with trash, dirt splashed on walls and glass, mud, scattered rocks and an odd sense of dislocation, caused I think by the unparallell vertical lines throughout, one of them from either spilled paint, or an unusually large bird dropping. These angles help to contribute to a feeling of imbalance, off-centeredness. It is a moody scene, almost the sort of moment to be found in some gansta flick, and so feels powerful to me. The curious blend of blurred, sharp and suggested shapes I find fascinating, and it feels like this man is about to step directly into the traffic, and given his hunched body, doesn't seem to care. The cars might have had low speed, but the camera has given them a racing quality; while the bike awaits its owner, probably a delivery person, judging from the paper sack on the extreme right. To me, it's almost a metaphor for our world to come, when we have run out of oil, and all are forced to walk and cycle once more.
Phil Douglis05-Jun-2007 18:05
Thanks, Celia, for this wonderful commentary. Yes, it is all about discomfort, distruption, misery and chaos. As you note, it is a metaphor for much of life itself. Life can occasionally be as messy as a rainy day in Casablanca, and the only thing we can do about it is to hunch our shoulders like this man, and gut it out.
Cecilia Lim05-Jun-2007 12:57
This is not a pretty picture at all(!) which is exactly why it expresses the mood of a miserable, rainy day so effectively for me. The dull, drab colours of the scene and the body language of the hunched lone man set the tone of the mood clearly! The background is visually complex and busy. That, together with the blur of the cars conjure up the feeling of chaos, which often brings disruption to everyday lives when it rains. I also like the contrast the stationery man and the parked bike brings to this busy scene. It is an uncomfortable tension in this dynamic scene that echoes this disruption. It is a truthful reflection about life itself - that sometimes life doesn't go with the flow of everything else around you. Sometimes you have to pause, and wait, reflect and plan your next move. Life is all about timing, and we know that it is just a matter of time before this man will make his next step across the street, and someone else will come and ride the bike away. This seemingly simple image about a rainy day has gone beyond just a story-telling street photograph Phil - it offers some thought-provoking metaphors about life itself!
Phil Douglis21-Jan-2007 18:46
That is how I read this picture, Rammaa, and why I made it. Rain is part of life -- we may not like it, but we make the best of it. Without rain, we could not live. And without rain, this image could not be made in the way I made it.
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