蠟燭 (Candles)

During most of Sunday’s event, the candles commemorating the Tiananmen protests were at the center of the action and attention. They offered a great way for everyone to conduct a small ritual that was as personal as public.

The candles made for a great symbol and you might have seen on the one or other article. Aesthetically though they were quite boring (due to the rain and probably safety, electric candles were used) and the more I composed my image around them explicitly the less I liked them. This was true especially in the beginning where I used my (much loved!) 40mm lens that only allows to focus on a small area – usually one person and a bit of background.

I was thus exuberant after switching to my 21mm wide-angle lens with which I could capture the candles, the tents in the background, and the individuals during their ritual. After playing around with it, I started to like the images that I framed with bystanders left and right from me. The first image is a good example – even though it would have been nice for the girls to take a few more steps towards the action at that moment, of course.

(I once more went for a natural look, only lifting the shadows again as the images would have been too dark otherwise.)