Friday, September 18, 2009

Thematic Photographic 67 - Urban

TGIF everybody!!!!

And thank you to Carmi, for providing this theme.


This week's Thematic Photographic theme, urban, reflects my belief that the seemingly endless process of paving and repaving the planet leaves lessons behind that we'd do well to learn. It's not a question of, to quote The Hulk, "Urban/bad, nature/good." Rather, it's a reminder that we should never be in such a rush to get through the day that we don't stop and wonder how the places that surround us came to be.


Actually, this one was hard, because I had quite a few shots I took while in Korea that I thought applied to the theme. Harbor views from our hotel windows, or the streets of open air malls lined with scooters and dotted with Starbucks.

Those shots seemed a little too obvious for this weeks' theme, which is why I chose the following shot.



I remember walking around a particular temple city (the name escapes me), looking at the temple buildings....admiring their simplicity and their complexity, all at the same time. Everything was so quiet.

At one point, I looked up over the rooftops, and suddenly found myself holding my breath. Seeing the modern city buildings looming, almost encroaching, caught me off guard.

6 comments:

Slyde said...

10 points to you for quoting my favorite comic book character in a post! :)

Brook said...

Wow! Great capture-we saw so much of this overseas. The hutongs in Beijing are gone now-bulldozed in the name of progress. How much history we lose in our push for new and better. Lets not even go into history lost here-and we don't even have that much as a country to begin with. The cultures of our forefathers paved over and gone. Of course most of mankind has been doing it for millenia so we can't be that bad can we?

Nej said...

@ Slyde - credit goes to Carmi on that one. :-) Although I'll take a point or two for posting his quote on my blog. (hehehe)

@ Brook - thanks!! We drove through Dodge City on our way to New Mexico. The older historical buildings were all torn down in the 60's or 70's some time, for an urban renewal project. Still makes me shake my head.

mo.stoneskin said...

Lovely photo, The Hulk would have been proud.

Light and Voices said...

The old buildings.
The new buildings encroaching.
Your photo speaks volumes.
Joyce

Nej said...

@ Mo - thanks Mo!!

@ Joyce - I'm excited to find other people hearing it speak like I was! :-) :-) :-)