My favorite photographic art usually includes some amount of whimsy, providing a bit of lighthearted balance in a world that can seem overly intense.
It’s important, however, to remember the power of photography to remind us of the dangerous turns society can take through extreme and destructive viewpoints.
This is an image of a memorial built to remind us of one particularly dark and evil period. The memorial, which symbolizes a commitment to the love of both knowledge and truth as necessary foundations for freedom, is built into the ground in the Bebelplatz near Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. It marks the site of one of the early Nazi book-burning travesties.
This image is not unique; there are countless pictures on the internet of the memorial. Most are taken from a standing position and show one or two walls of the barren bookshelves in the undergrownd library. I tried to capture the full scope of the memorial, showing all four walls of empty shelves.
My wife and I visited the memorial after dark to avoid the daytime crowds. We brought water and paper towels to clean the square of glass that is the top of the memorial but is at ground level in the plaza. Despite the late hour, a small group still gathered to watch as I positioned my camera with a wide-angle fish-eye lens in the middle of the window.
My hope is that the starkly powerful message of the memorial can help the world avoid a return to that dark place.