Photo-Essay: The Way we View Things
Washington DC, the piedmont of democratic practices for the world, for the United States, is also a great tourist attraction. Behind every monument or memorial is a historical background that attempts to be told through the structure. However, when these monuments are viewed through a touristic lens, the context of these monuments and memorials is assembled as being iconic to American ideologies and represent our history. Popular culture views these monuments in their pristine. But what about when the lights go off, when the monuments are not presentable to the populous? What do they look like at night? How does the lighting of these structures tell the story? Well, the lighting of each individual structure shows how we really want the memorial to be viewed. Because in the day everything is lit up, however, at night we select specific aspects to light up.
The first Stop I took was to the Lincoln Memorial. The first thing you see is its signature steps that leads up to Lincoln sitting in his Chair. During the day you can see straight in, and everything around Lincoln. But at night there are specific things that are being lit. One of the biggest things is that, Lincoln him self is not totally lit up, only his upper torso and hit head. I believe this is because when we think of Lincoln we think of his long face and beard. The lighting makes him appear with out a beginning or end. So almost as if to say he will all ways be looking over our nation. On other striking element to the Memorial is that all of the engravings are not lit up, unlike other engravings in other memorials. This could be because you not actually aloud into the memorial after dark, so there is no need to light the passages up.
If you walk down the reflection pool towards the Washington monument, before you reach the monument you will come upon the World War II Memorial. This is the newest monument in DC and is the most impressive by far. There are two large fountains in the center with a large number of smaller fountains surrounding them. Also the stone structures that make up the actually memorial are all free standing pillars with the names either states, US provinces or allied forces under the wreaths. The lighting was very interesting because the pillars were not as lit up as the fountains. So there wasn’t as much recognition given to the people that actually fought in this war. Most of the light was focused in the middle towards the water; this is because water normally signifies peace and harmony. This Memorial is not to actually give recognition to the people that fought and lost their lives as much as it is to signify peace in the world.
The third and final memorial that I visited was the Washington Monument. It is one of the first things that you see as you enter our Nations capital. The Sheer size of the Monument is overwhelming when standing next to it. I picked this monument as my last one because it signifies America, in that we will always an enormous power in the world today. The lighting around the structure is massive in itself. There are 12, large lights that are stationed 300 yards away that light up monument from middle to top. Then there are about 68 smaller lights that light up the bottom to the middle. We want the world to always be able to see our power, and the monument signifies power.
The monuments are meant to be viewed in certain ways. The lighting is only a guide in how the creators wanted us to view there master pieces. This was a different stance on the memorials and monuments but it shows them in a different view. I hope that this has open your eyes to a different view of our history.
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