the obligatory photo opportunity
Hello,
Check out this picture [it was on a BBC news article I can no longer find] – kind of weird, no? I have two versions of that photo with me and other people in it, from different trips to Paris. By a complete guesstimate, whilst I was in the toilet, I reckon the number of photos just like that is of the order of millions*. With very few of those people realizing Adolf also had his own version on his mantelpiece.
I wonder how many other de rigueur photos are out there on dictators desks….
For me this brings up a number of issues: Ignoring the political significance of the photo, it reminds us that some of the most controversial figures in history, also would have done the most mundane of things. Also, in having such a photo taken, one is sharing an experience with all sorts of people from different times and places.
The latter theme reminds me of when I once looked through a diary of my grandparents' travels through Spain in the late 1940’s. I was amazed to find that of the three photos in the entire diary they had taken an identical photo of a not terribly remarkable monument in a park in Barcelona, that I had also taken a picture of in 2000 (this time one of perhaps ten photos in Barcelona). Aside of being a remarkable coincidence, it is also a bizarre bond of having unconsciously shared an experience with someone distant in time and reality.
Over and out,
Ali
* For those nerds amongst you, the calculation was roughly:
15 hours a day X 20 photos hour X 400 days a year X 30 years
Check out this picture [it was on a BBC news article I can no longer find] – kind of weird, no? I have two versions of that photo with me and other people in it, from different trips to Paris. By a complete guesstimate, whilst I was in the toilet, I reckon the number of photos just like that is of the order of millions*. With very few of those people realizing Adolf also had his own version on his mantelpiece.
I wonder how many other de rigueur photos are out there on dictators desks….
For me this brings up a number of issues: Ignoring the political significance of the photo, it reminds us that some of the most controversial figures in history, also would have done the most mundane of things. Also, in having such a photo taken, one is sharing an experience with all sorts of people from different times and places.
The latter theme reminds me of when I once looked through a diary of my grandparents' travels through Spain in the late 1940’s. I was amazed to find that of the three photos in the entire diary they had taken an identical photo of a not terribly remarkable monument in a park in Barcelona, that I had also taken a picture of in 2000 (this time one of perhaps ten photos in Barcelona). Aside of being a remarkable coincidence, it is also a bizarre bond of having unconsciously shared an experience with someone distant in time and reality.
Over and out,
Ali
* For those nerds amongst you, the calculation was roughly:
15 hours a day X 20 photos hour X 400 days a year X 30 years
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