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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery One: Travel Abstractions -- Unlimited Thought > Walking the net, Cochin, India, 2008
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04-APR-2008

Walking the net, Cochin, India, 2008

A single fisherman and a lone crow share a moment on the huge fishing nets that provide food for many in Cochin. I abstract the man, the framework for the massive fishing nets, and even the crow by backlighting them. Downtown Cochin fades softly into the background. By removing most detail, I stress the scale incongruity – the small man on the large apparatus.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/1300s f/11.0 at 67.4mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time04-Apr-2008 21:39:21
MakeLeica
ModelV-LUX 1
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length67.4 mm
Exposure Time1/1300 sec
Aperturef/11
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.66
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis15-Mar-2009 19:58
Thanks for noting how abstraction can affect the emotions, Kathy. By minimizing this man through both backlight and scale, I tried to create the sense of isolation that you speak of here. Isolation is a human value. His small size is an example of scale incongruity. His silhouette is an example of abstraction. Thus this images makes effective use of all three of the key principles of expressive photography to tell the story you have seen so well here.
Kathy Khuner15-Mar-2009 18:48
For me this photo holds much sadness. The isolation of this fisherman looming large against the soft image of the city emphasizes harsh reality of his life and at the same time reminds us that among the cacophony and busyness of the city, the people who eat the fish he catches are totally unaware of the part he plays in their lives.
Phil Douglis28-Jan-2009 20:46
The man is small compared to the huge fishing net and even smaller when you go beyond, as you do, to compare him to the city in the distance. When we look at photographs, we often gain knowledge by comparing scale. In this case, you feel both his isolation and his smallness. A photograph itself is tiny when compared to the subjects it represents -- we could hold this entire man and his universe in our hand or within the frame of our computer monitor. All photographs are representational -- abstractions of real life. But when we look deeply into an image, particularly one as abstracted as this one, we project our imaginations into the image and wonder about its larger meanings. Thanks, Shawn, for giving such thought to this image.
Guest 28-Jan-2009 18:23
I like the small picture that fills the frame and masks the huge city that looms in the distance. Our eyes are forced to focus on the man and the bird but then we glance to the distant city. It is at this moment that this picture comes to life for me. It is then that I realize how small we as humans are in this great big world and how it is the little things that make up the big world.
Phil Douglis03-Jan-2009 17:34
Thanks, Nancy, for finding a sense of comfort here -- the man walks this plank without even looking down. He holds on to the wire just as the crow clings to the structure below him -- neither bird or man gives security a second thought. It is taken for granted.
Nancy Good02-Jan-2009 21:54
And the symbolic "walking of the tightrope" provides even further tension, along with the strong diagonal lines. We need the familiarity of the man and the crow in order to balance out the strangeness of the framework, which is unfamiliar to us without your description. We're also provided comfort by seeing how at ease the man appears to be.
Phil Douglis19-Apr-2008 19:28
Well said, Tim. There is a scale incongruity here. It is seldom we see a solitary person in a country as populous as India.
Tim May19-Apr-2008 19:26
And, a small man in a big city, and big country.
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