Doug Dubois: A Formal Analysis

The Houston Center for Photography has a photo titled Jordan up the pole Rusell Heights by Doug Dubois. The photo was taken in 2010 and printed in 2015. The title of the photograph is depicted exactly as such in the picture. An adolescent male, is shown with his legs crossed on the very peak of a telephone, with only one hand hold on to the steel pole. It is unsettling at first glance to see a young male so far away from the ground, as one may think he is about to fall at any time.
The young child’s expression is something that is interesting to analyze because one does not quite know what he is expressing. It seems to be a mixture of confusion and nonchalance which contrasts to what the audience must feel when they look at the photo. The picture evokes wonder, awe, and curiosity, emotions that starkly contrast the boy’s aura of
It is light and airy and it uses a lot of pastel colors and hues. The houses are all pastel pinks, oranges, and yellows and it has a slight contrast to the pastel blue of the sky which is where one would the see the boy. Only the boy and the telephone pole don’t follow the same pattern but rather wear grey, seemingly enough to tie the different colors. It seems to capture youthful feelings when one looks at this photo and it seems really nostalgic. One can also see some implied lines as the houses are angled from right to left to go up and shift your focus towards the character back on the telephone pole with him staring back at you.
According to Dubois, this was from a set of works called My Last Day at Seventeen. The assumption is that the story is about some of his last moments at seventeen as he reexamines his youth and tries to capture it. I think it has fully come together and he captured it well by the clothes the boy is wearing and the pastel colors that houses have. It is basically a screenshot of someone’s last day as a youth before he reaches the threshold of