Holy... What else is there to say? A LOT, actually. Today, myself, Bart, and Bryce went downtown to shoot some pictures on this beautiful Wednesday afternoon. You can check out my other decent stuff here. Anyway, back to this shot. We headed over to State Capitol Park to do some nature stuff, portraits, etc., and we came across the statue of Father Junipero Serra. If you're not familiar with Serra you can learn a jaded tidbit about him here. At the base of the statue is a map of California that is marked with all of the missions that Father Serra helped construct up and down the coast line. However, it is my feeling that this statue shouldn't even EXIST. Last time I checked, there aren't statues dedicated to the men that ran the Japanese internment camps in the '40's. Also, I don't think there are any statues dedicated to the auctioneers who sold slaves for hundreds of years in THIS VERY COUNTRY. Ok, so you get it, you're intelligent, I don't need to be telling you that our country has an marred history rife with human injustice. Yet, right at our state capitol there is this statue of Father Junipero Serra. When the Spanish began coming into what is now present day California and began constructing missions, they forced Christianity onto the native American people. These people had their own customs and practices; they did not need Catholicism to "save" them. Which brings me to the commentary I am using in this shot. I shot this at f/1.4 so the actual statue is completely out of focus behind the cross. This is how I feel about what the Spanish did to the natives. All they could see was their cross; their religion. They were so jaded by this that they could not see the men and women that were right in front of them. All they saw were savages that needed to be saved from their own hellacious destiny. I also decided to post the cross processed version of this shot, because I feel that it has just a little more of the feel I was looking for from this image. The original version can be seen with the set I linked in the beginning of this post. So, wonderful people, tell me what you think. About all of it. I'd love to hear from you.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
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It is interesting that Christopher Columbus was looked at as a hero too until people really discovered (or just paid attention to) the horrible things he had done. "They" say hindsight is 20/20 but it is really hard to know what motivated people in the past to do the things they did. Yeah we can see the consequences because we know the end of their story but it is easy to bring down harsh judgments on figures in the past. Should a statue of this Franciscan be in front of the state capital? I don’t know. You can look at it this way, at least it gave you a good picture and an interesting blog post.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Jason. One must have fuel to have a fire.
ReplyDeleteWell said Jason. Perspective certainly is an interesting thing.
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