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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Forty-Three: When doors, arches and gates express ideas > The walk home, Pingyao, China, 2007
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13-SEP-2007

The walk home, Pingyao, China, 2007

This man lives behind massive wooden doors that could be hundreds of years old. Everything echoes the color of the brown dust that blankets this remote city, except for the red and gold banners that welcome him home. I spent more than fifteen minutes photographing residents walking up and down this alleyway and in and out of that door, which probably leads to a communal living compound. By photographing this man from behind, I abstract him, and put the viewer in his place. The distant doorway becomes our goal as well.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/125s f/4.0 at 37.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis20-Oct-2007 00:27
Good point, Tim. We think of China as as emerging power, and in many ways it is. On the other hand, as we frequently noted, there are also many people there who may feel left behind, and look back instead of forward. This could well be a metaphor for such an attitude.
Tim May19-Oct-2007 19:10
This image is evocative for me of the disconnect I felt in China. I know that the people of our age where young in the Maoist period. It almost seems to me that he is walking out of the present into his past.
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