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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Twenty Eight: Using symbols and metaphors to express meaning > Old photographs, Mumbai, India, 2008
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06-APR-2008

Old photographs, Mumbai, India, 2008

I found these in the window of an antiques shop in Mumbai’s Chor Bazaar. Two things have transformed them into powerful symbols -- their overlapping arrangement on the shelf of the window, and the water stain that seems to link two of the three frames. All of these people, once proud enough to pose in their best for a professional photographer, are treated harshly by time. One of them loses his head entirely. Another is about to be enveloped by shadow. A stain disfigures the matte of the photograph of the couple. It also seems to flow directly into the severed head of the man below it. I converted this image to black and white -- it is essentially an image made of other black and white photographs. People used to have their photographs taken as a link to posterity -- they hoped their descendants would not forget them. Yet here they are, up for sale in the window of a dusty antique shop.

Leica V-Lux 1
1/500s f/6.3 at 25.5mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time06-Apr-2008 03:12:03
MakeLeica
ModelV-LUX 1
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length25.5 mm
Exposure Time1/500 sec
Aperturef/6.3
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias-0.33
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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Phil Douglis04-May-2008 19:56
Images are transitory, Tim. The art of photography is less than 200 years, and already its technology has moved from chemistry to electronics. With economic pressures dictating change for the sake of change itself, today's images are likely to be unreadable by future generations. Hundreds of years from now, people will still be responding to images left on the walls of caves and tombs thousands of years ago, but it likely that very few of our own images will still exist. As a photographic print maker, you are trying to bypass the uncertain fate of the electronic image by putting your images on paper, but it is hard to say if they will still be visible hundreds of years from now. Ultimately, it all comes down to the motivation of future generations to preserve their past. And none of us will have any say in that matter. You are right. Technology will change, viewers will come, go, and fade, and all that we do as expressive image makers will eventually be most likely lost to time itself.
Tim May04-May-2008 18:51
This causes me to wonder how long our image making will last beyond of time on earth. The digital images won't fade, but the technology on which they are store will change - but more importantly the viewers will also fade. So few image makers "last."
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