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Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventeen: Memories in Metal and Stone: How monuments, sculpture, and tombs express ideas. > Prayers for peace, Hiroshima, Japan, 2006
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23-MAR-2006

Prayers for peace, Hiroshima, Japan, 2006

No city in the world regards world peace as seriously as Hiroshima, Japan. Prayers and hopes inscribed on small pieces of wood honor some of the 140,000 victims of the blast and plead for a world free from nuclear weapons. The fragile sticks may vanish with the first storm but the large and deep carvings in the rock just behind them no doubt echo the sentiments they express. I made this image with a 28mm wideangle lens, which allowed me to come in as close as possible for detail, yet still get the full range of subject matter into the frame.

Leica D-Lux 2
1/800s f/5.6 at 6.3mm iso80 full exif

other sizes: small medium large original auto
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Phil Douglis23-Apr-2006 04:35
I agree that explanations are needed here, as in most travel images. As i said before, words are part of travel photography. We seldom see a travel picture without a caption of some kind. Yet the deep engravings on the stones, even though unintelligible, appear to memorialize. This must be a shrine of some kind. Given that context, it is relatively easy to assume that the sticks are an offering honoring the dead.
Guest 23-Apr-2006 03:57
Here again, your explanation was needed. At first, these sticks look like books and nothing is obviously indicating that it is a memorial , at least from our point in view (because we don't undertsand the written langauge).
Christine
Phil Douglis19-Apr-2006 21:36
You are very perceptive, Tim. This image could have just as well been in my Color gallery, because it is color of those prayers that draw the eye and symbolize hope, rather that dwell on the horror of what happened here.
Tim May19-Apr-2006 18:15
I am captured by the color - the array of color brings, for me, more hope the the dream of peace.
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