Dear New York, Memorial

Dear New York,

What excellent photos you have been taking over the last couple of weeks! I very much liked the use of black and white, and the symmetry on the front of the USS Intrepid is very cool.

So this week, your theme was Memorial, and your image captured the hauntingly beautiful memorial to the September 11th attacks on New York. Obviously, memorial is a subject that needs to be taken respectfully, especially when the subjects are within very recent, living memory, as my chosen memorial is.

On 7th July, 2005, London was rocked by a series of 4 explosions - targeting innocent civilians on their morning commute. 52 people died and hundreds of others were wounded and had their lives irreversibly changed by the evil actions of a few.

The City of London has memorialised the people who were killed during these brutal attacks, by erecting 52 steel columns in Hyde Park.

For my photo, I wanted to make sure I treated the memory of those people with respect, whilst also coming away with (hopefully) an interesting and captivating picture. I wanted to use more slow shutter speed effects, and use light to create a ghostly brightness among the columns. The memorial is a beautiful one in its own right, and certainly worth a visit when in Hyde Park, if only to pay ones respects and remember those killed on that shocking day.

For this week’s theme, I had a bit of trouble finding inspiration, until I stumbled upon something completely at random. I was thinking of doing something a bit Autumnal, as summer is coming to a close and, in London at least, the leaves are now turning brown and falling from the trees.

Whilst in the park, however, I found a stack of deck chairs (summer isn’t completely over, it seems) and I really liked the pattern the wood made, so I snapped a few shots and was really pleased with how they turned out.

So this week, the theme for you is Patterns.

Happy snapping!

London