At 8:15 am on August 6, 1945, the city of Hiroshima, Japan, was destroyed by a single American atomic bomb. The event is commemorated in this museum. The photomural features an image of a wristwatch stilled forever by the blast. The actual watch rests in the case at right. I waited and watched as a steady flow of people moved somberly past the watch and the mural. I made this image when two of them stopped to contemplate the horror of the event, while a third moves past in a blur. The watch has become a symbol that makes an event such as this more personal and real. The mural has become a symbol as well, enlarging the wristwatch to monumental size, thereby magnifying its significance. My own image stops time, just as the watch has. I create symbolic meaning of my own by using a symbol of a symbol as my subject matter.