Reflections and Transparency

Tourist Silhouette

I feel like the photo above needs to stand alone, but I wanted add some words of explanation and some additional photos as well ... so I will try to separate the Tourist photo from the others with words. These were taken on July 2nd when my mother and I visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The structure itself is very dynamic and provocative. I particularly enjoy the combination of brick, steel, and glass. Very industrial, yet warm and solid. I really like the way this photo came out. I knew it would be good when I was quickly snapping this fellow tourist/photographer before he moved or noticed. Its like self-documentation. I like how the man is a shadowy figure and the glass is simultaneously reflective and translucent. I also like all the different lines, angles and layers that are going on. The photo below also captures those same elements but adds perspective and dimension.

Ladder

The time of day lent for some interesting lighting on the top floors of the steel and glass walkways. I took the opportunity to take a self-portrait because I was wearing such a brightly colored shirt and the whole window/mirror/reflection-thing in pictures is so trippy. Photographing yourself and you watch yourself doing it. Funny. I wish it wasn't so light and washed out and that some of the shadows were in better places but that's the way it is.

See-through Reflection

The exhibit was also very moving and though provoking, however the summer crowds make the emotionally charged exhibitions difficult. I was much more affected by the exhibition on the bottom floor (the one you didn't have to wait with a ticket for) titled - "Give Me Your Children: Voices from the Lodz Ghetto" which documented the German's invasion of Poland and the life of children in the subsequently created ghettos. This exhibition presents their voices—preserved in letters, diaries, memoirs, and oral histories—as well as historic photographs and original documents. I had to choke back the tears more than once. It is shocking and extremely saddening to see what people can do to each other.