Phil Douglis | all galleries >> Galleries >> Gallery Seventeen: Memories in Metal and Stone: How monuments, sculpture, and tombs express ideas. > War Relocation Center, Manzanar, California, 2006
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17-OCT-2006

War Relocation Center, Manzanar, California, 2006

After Japan attacked the United States in 1941, more than 120,000 men, women and children of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast of the US were forcibly removed from their homes and sent to ten remote desert relocation centers such as the one at Manzanar, just outside Lone Pine, California. Many lost their jobs, their homes, and their property. Two thirds of internees were American citizens. More than 11,000 internees were enclosed by barbed wire in this mile square camp between 1942 and 1945. More than 40 years later, the US government offered an apology and compensation to the former internees, and the camp itself was demolished. One of the few remnants of the camp is a small monument, built in 1943 by the Japanese internees. It stands in a tiny cemetery, and the inscription refers to it as “soul consoling tower.” I abstract the monument down to a fragment of that inscription. A stone rests on its ledge, along with a few pennies, telling us that those who lived and died here are still remembered. Although it is essentially a monochromatic subject, I wanted to photograph it in color so that these memories will seem more real.

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ50
1/800s f/9.0 at 28.6mm iso100 hide exif
Full EXIF Info
Date/Time17-Oct-2006 10:11:21
MakePanasonic
ModelDMC-FZ50
Flash UsedNo
Focal Length28.6 mm
Exposure Time1/800 sec
Aperturef/9
ISO Equivalent100
Exposure Bias
White Balance
Metering Modemulti spot (3)
JPEG Quality
Exposure Programprogram (2)
Focus Distance

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