No Expectations

Photo of the Day - October 21, 2008

by Kip Cole on Tuesday, October 21, 2008 at 05:41 UTC

Looking Up Through the New England Holocaust Memorial

The Big Dig brought many positive changes to Boston since it was my home. One addition to the landscape, near to where the abomination that was the elevated freeway along the harbourfront, is the New England Holocaust Memorial.

One of the best pieces of advice I’ve even been given about making photographs is to look for an unexpected angle. We’re all, generally, of similar height in the world, similar vision, a pair of eyes that give a perspective not unlike a 50mm lens on a 35mm camera.

Therefore it stands to reason that photos taken standing up and composing from eye level to fill the viewfinder with the scene will look undifferentiated.

As one teacher said quick succinctly, get up or get down. Pretty much forces an alternative point of view if you do that.

The memorial comprises six glass towers. Rather than photograph a row of six towers I elected to get beneath one of them and point the camera upwards, wide angle lens and as much depth of field as I could get but still handhold with a reasonable shutter speed.

The result is a little abstract. With a little effort its easy to tell its the inside of a tower. And you can see some etchings on the glass. Hopefully that creates a little interest to find out more. Isn’t that one objective of making a photograph?

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