War memorial

These two images were both shot at the war memorial in Alrewas near burton in the west midlands, the structure is a huge circular memorial with the names of thousands of soldiers lost during all conflicts since the first wold war, a very very emotional place,
The image with the sculpture shows a gap in the carved door at 11 am on 11th day on the 11th month as rememberance services take place around the world (assuming it is sunny) a shaft of light cuts through the memorial and shines onto the centre of the reeth

Looks pretty cool. It is always interesting to see other countries memorials like this. Thanks for sharing.

Marshall

adrian rathbone said:

The image with the sculpture shows a gap in the carved door at 11 am on 11th day on the 11th month as rememberance services take place around the world (assuming it is sunny) a shaft of light cuts through the memorial and shines onto the centre of the reeth

Click to expand...

The line of light reminds me of ideas behind light shafts and celestial alignments in ancient pyramids, temples and the circles of stones at Stonhenge, not to mentions shades of Indiana Jones mythology!

Still, the simplicity of the structure and the commonality of one path of light joins together the separate fate of so many young men and women lost in wars. The design of the doors, a garage door and a grand front entrance door in the first picture, an identifiable home for each family and makes what is massive and impersonal into a personal memorial.

Is that the interpretation given with this memorial?

Asher

solidairty

Yes you are quite correct when we were there as you can emagine there were people of all faiths from lots of countries some spoke english some didn`t yet everyone just appreciated the place even more for the fact that none of that mattered allmost eveoking the war time spirit of solidarity.
The whole site set over hundreds of acres and allthough the walls in the central memorial are carved with names of the thousands of servicemen and women that have lost there lives in conflict, there are also wall panels dedicated to people such as post men, police men, and other civilian workers who also lost there lives. below are a number of shots of serveral of the seperate memorial within the site (of wich there are hundreds dedicated to individual branches of the forces navy, comando`s etc), and you will notice in the back ground lots of trees with plaques, these are sponsored by individuals who have lost relatives, or individual regigments or squads,
Its quite amazing that when the shaft of light enters enters the memorial because it can be very bright and piercing in november with the clear winter skies the rest of the memorial falls into almost darkness.
i appologise for the shaddows in the image but these are un edited shots (taken incidently with a nokia n95 camera phone as i was having a "bad camera" weekend (women have bad hair days i have bad camera days )