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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventy: How to use super wideangle lenses effectively > Eternal Flame, World War II Monument, Kiev, Ukraine, 2009
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19-OCT-2009

Eternal Flame, World War II Monument, Kiev, Ukraine, 2009

Half of Kiev’s population was killed during the Second World War. The three-year Nazi occupation was brutal. The Red Army liberated the city at the end of 1943. Today this tragic period is recalled in a park just south of downtown Kiev, along the Dnieper River. The Soviet Union has vanished and the Ukraine is now an independent nation. A heroic statue erected by Soviet chairman Leonid Brezhnev honors what was then Ukraine’s “Motherland,” the USSR. Before it stands a cauldron meant to hold an eternal flame in honor of those who perished. I used a superwide angle 14mm focal length here to relate the cauldron to both the statue and the overhead clouds. I positioned the largest flow of clouds to symbolize smoke over the cauldron at left, and turn the dagger of the statue into a torch held just below a smaller flow of clouds at right. Since I am much closer to the cauldron then the statue, it dominates the scene, anchoring the image upon a funereal black mound and bowl. The slight tilt of the statue adds a surrealistic edge to the photograph.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1
1/1250s f/13.0 at 7.0mm iso100 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis21-Nov-2009 01:02
Nature does indeed light the way for man, even when the fire itself goes out. It is ironic that this cauldron no longer blazes in remembrance of the war dead, and fitting that nature seems to pick up the slack here.
Tim May20-Nov-2009 23:20
I see here a comment on the nature of the interaction between the hopes of Man and the persistence of Nature. The "eternal" flame is extinguished, yet Nature provides the "flame" for us.
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