Weekly Photo Challenge: Orange

Regular readers will know I’m not that keen on the Gallery feature that WordPress provides. I’d much rather you see my photographs in full size straight away rather than having to do extra clicks or wait on the slideshow running. Not only that I can give the information behind the photographs in a much better way.

Because each photograph is only a fragment, its moral and emotional weight depends on where it is inserted. A photograph changes according to the context in which it is seen: thus Smith’s Minamata photographs will seem different on a contact sheet, in a gallery, in a political demonstration, in a police file, in a photographic magazine, in a book, on a living-room wall. Each of these situations suggest a different use for the photographs but none can secure their meaning. – Susan Sontag, On Photography by Susan Sontag

To me, galleries are flat and lifeless, showing tiny thumbnails of the original photograph. I have always tried to use a theme for my blog that displays my photographs in as large a size as possible so you can see why I’m against galleries. Anyway rant over.

First up this branch.

For some reason Uphill beach in North Somerset used to get more than it’s fair share of driftwood brought in by the tide. What I really like about this is the odd shape, it looks like someone diving into the water. What do you think? Do you agree? Or do you see something different?

About 6 years ago I was in Berlin for a week, working on a telecoms project. It’s not the first time though that I’ve been in Berlin. A long time ago, when the Berlin Wall was still standing I spent about two years working in Berlin. At the time I was able to drive past the Soviet War memorial in the Tiergarten but not allowed to stop and visit it. Nowadays, you can visit so I took the opportunity to at the end of the day to photograph the amazing monument.

With the sun low in the sky the gold lettering really stands out. I was able to wander all round the monument until dark, something I’ve always wanted to do. My next photograph was also taken just as the sun was setting. At that time of the day light conditions are amazing and standing on this causeway I was able to capture the golden glow from the sun as it dipped below the horizon.

If Knightstone ever was an island you would be hard pushed to see it now, mainly because of the short road which connects it to Weston-super-Mare. It doesn’t look like an island and the causeway serves to amplify this, especially when the tide is out. However when the tide comes in it’s a different matter. more often than not at high tide that causeway is covered and from the hotel you can see in the background Knightstone does look more like an island.

Well that wraps it up for this week. I hope you enjoyed the photographs and can see my reasoning behind not showing a gallery. I just don’t think galleries do my photographs justice.