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Names on the Menen Gate at Ypres.
These and about 35,000 more names are those of the men who died in the Ypres Salient and whose bodies could not be recovered or identified for a decent burial. The sheer obscenity of that mud-choked hell still resonates nearly 100 years later, and fills me with horror and anger at the colossal waste of lives and talents, and the way so many human beings could be treated as disposable assets in the name of the greater glory of nations.
I could go on, but the great Eric Bogle said it better, far better, in the last lines of the last verse:
Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?
Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fire o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?
And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?
The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plough;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.
And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Berwick (red and blue helmet covers) and Rye House riders leave the starting gate at Shielfield Park in the opening heat of a Premier League speedway fixture. It was billed as hosts Berwick's last home match before financial pressures force them to fold. At least the Bandits went out on a high, crushing a poor Rockets team 64-29.
The Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate and one of the main symbols of Berlin and Germany. It is located west of the city center at the intersection of Unter den Linden and Ebertstraße, immediately west of the Pariser Platz. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which one formerly entered Berlin. One block to the north stands the Reichstag. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Karl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. The Brandenburg Gate was restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Stiftung Denkmalschutz Berlin (Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation). Today, it is considered one of Europe's most famous landmarks.
A gate at the du Petit Thouars vineyards outside Chinon in the Loire valley, France. Developed using a tonemapping scheme.
The Meridian gate serves as the main entrance gate to the Imperial City of Hue. In front is the moat that surrounds the Imperial City, which was modeled after the Forbidden City in Beijing, with many Chinese influences throughout.
The Imperial City, inside the Citadel, was constructed in 1803 under Emperor Gia Long as a new capital. It mostly served a ceremonial function during the French colonial period and was heavily damaged during the Vietnam war. The Meridian gate is one of the structures miraculously spared from the intense bombing during the Tet offensive in 1968.
The Imperial City was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993.
Hue, Vietnam
IMG_8674-E
An old shot from many years ago.
The only reason it does not have a higher resolution file is because my camera could not shoot that high way back then. I have considered going back to re-shoot it with my current equipment.
This was shot on the streets around Capitola, CA. It is a macro shot - the loop is about 3/4" tall. I enjoyed the detail and DOF that I got with the limited lens selection I had at that time.
The rust makes it pop. I love the waterlogged wood that broke under repeated impacts from the gate which clasps with this metal loop. This image very much reveals life on the California coast (to me, anyway).
This shot is one of the reasons I kept taking pictures...
The khan maak procession: The potential groom has to charm and pay his way past the gate-keepers, December 2010.
For the background story, please visit my PhotoBlog:
www.ursulasweeklywanders.com/travel/scenes-from-a-traditi...
My garden gate I created last year. I enjoyed the light in this one. My garden is my little place of peace and grace.
Jongmyo Shrine, Seoul, South Korea
Jongmyo is a Confucian shrine dedicated to the perpetuation of memorial services for the deceased kings and queens of the Korean Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897). According to UNESCO, the shrine is the oldest royal Confucian shrine preserved and the ritual ceremonies continue a tradition established in the 14th century. Such shrines existed during the Three Kingdoms of Korea period (57-668), but these have not survived. The Jongmyo Shrine was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1995.
Jongmyo is adjacent to Changdeokgung and Changgyeonggung in the south. They used to be connected in the Joseon period, but were separated by a road built by Japanese colonialists. Nowadays there is a construction plan to recover the original structure of the shrine. The main buildings of Jongmyo was constructed in October, 1394 when Taejo, first king of Joseon Dynasty, moved the capital to Seoul. It was destroyed by fire in the Japanese invasions of Korea (1592–98), then rebuilt in 1608.