I took this photo in 2008 with my 5D. I was on my way to the West coast of Scotland with a friend of mine (in the photo next to the monument) and we stopped on the way when I saw this monument away from the road on top of a hill. We walked to it and took some photos.
I remember it had a long list of names on a plaque, so I’m assuming it was a war monument, but I now can’t remember exactly what it said.
What attracted me to the monument first from a distance was how isolated it was: on top of its hill, it was surrounded by valleys. Not a house, not a human in sight. It felt completely out of place. I was intrigued, so I had to find out more and see it up close.
What also attracted me was that it was in the snow. It was the middle of January in the Scottish highlands, probably about -10 degrees, early morning. Everything was crisp and fresh. It was a good moment I wanted to capture.
To compose the photo, I first put the hills in the background on a third line to delineate the sky and balance the scene.
I put the monument on that line in the middle because it was the main subject. It should be obvious at first glance what the photo is about.
I stood with my camera on the tripod in the shadow of the monument to have the sun rise behind it and have its shadow point at it to drive the eye to the subject. With the shape of the hills also pointing at the monument, no matter where you look in the photo at first, you should be drawn to the subject.
I essentially shot into the sun, but most of it was hidden behind the monument so the camera didn’t struggle too much. The 5D wasn’t great to deal with under-exposure: you ended up with a lot of banding. The joy of early 2000s sensors.
Then I waited for my friend to walk to it and look at it to take the photo (I only took 3 images because I was worried of draining my battery in the cold before I got to our destination). I wanted someone next to the monument to set the scale and make it more human.
I don’t remember if I intended to make this photo monochrome at the time, but I think I did because I found platinum versions of it on my hard drives. In any case, I think it works.
#Photography #PhotosExplained #Monument