I use the sweep of the 14mm super wideangle lens here to deliberately distort the scene and thereby tell my story. The memorial, dedicated ninety years ago, has been virtually swallowed by the growth of Astoria. It is tucked away next to a busy highway, lined with utility poles and the curving approach to a bridge spanning the Columbia River, linking Oregon to Washington. I stood underneath the heroic statue to make this shot, abstracting it in backlight, and tilting the camera up to distort the combative figure and extend the bridge, poles, and wires into a chaotic industrial environment. The rain clouds symbolically help express my idea as well – patches of blue struggle to be seen in the darkening sky. I use optical distortion, created by the super wideangle focal length and my vantage point, to symbolize the futility of fighting terrible wars which are eventually forgotten, overwhelmed by inevitable change.