United We Conquer

United We ConquerUnited We Conquer
CameraSony DSC-F828
Exposure Modeauto
Focal Length16.7mm
Aperturef/4
Exposure1/250 sec.
ISO Speed64
Flashoff
One of the reasons that there hasn't been a post for a while is because we've been away on holiday. Fortunately the holiday gave me lots of opportunities to take photos so I'm hoping to get back on track for posting fifty-two photos this year.

United We ConquerThis weeks photo is of the Commando Memorial just outside Spean Bridge in Scotland. During WWII the Commando's had a training base at Achnacarry (about four miles from the monument) and use the entire area for their training. The aim of the photo was to use the monument to show how the Commandos were united as a group (their motto is "United We Conquer") but often isolated from the rest of the armed forces as they spearheaded attacks into enemy territory. My idea was to shoot the top half of the monument against the sky, leaving the figures isolated against the rather plain backdrop. I took a number of such shots but I wasn't really happy with any of them. Fortunately I also took a standard tourist type shot of the whole monument. Cropping this photo down allowed me to get the image I was after. I didn't originally intend to convert to black and white but the cropped image was obviously of a statue and I wanted something that at first glance would look a little more natural and given that we are used to seeing photos from WWII in black and white this seemed a sensible choice.

2 comments:

ADRIAN said...

This is a beautiful tribute. I've been there but never done them justice. Thanks for this.

Mark said...

Thanks Adrian, glad you think it works.

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