Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventeen: Memories in Metal and Stone: How monuments, sculpture, and tombs express ideas. > German Bunker, Pointe du Hoc, France, 2004
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29-AUG-2004

German Bunker, Pointe du Hoc, France, 2004

60 years ago, in one of the most heroic acts of World War II, a group of several hundred US Rangers scaled 100 foot high cliffs under heavy fire to silence German artillery shelling American soldiers landing on Omaha Beach. From this bunker, German spotters directed that artillery fire. Today’s visitors to the famous D-Day landing beaches of Normandy can tour the heights of Pointe du Hoc and view what remains of that bloody day. In this image, I tried to sum up how we recall that battle. I placed my camera virtually on top of the coils of barbed wire sealing off the back of the bunker. The barbed wire becomes a symbol for war itself, and fills half of my frame. I waited behind that wire for about five minutes, hoping that someone would come by and look inside the front window. A mother and her young daughter arrived and stood in silence off to one side of the window, staring solemnly into the room where soldiers once killed and were killed. I make my point with scale incongruity. These people appear much smaller than the bunker that envelops them. The war that once raged in this spot, and its consequences, still looms large in our collective memory.

Canon PowerShot G5
1/160s f/4.0 at 7.2mm hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time29-Aug-2004 19:18:42
MakeCanon
ModelPowerShot G5
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length7.2 mm
Exposure Time1/160 sec
Aperturef/4
ISO Equivalent
Exposure Bias
White Balance (-1)
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality (6)
Exposure Programshutter priority (2)
Focus Distance

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