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In stark contrast to last week's landscape, this IOTW (Image of the Week-ish) encompasses a different kind of reflection: how cruel we can be to each other. I present two images, one a work of art and the other a randomly piled natural material, but both strong in symbolism. They record a recurrent theme in human history, on this occasion events approximately 30 years apart.

My notes

Sometimes travelling entails things you aren't supposed to enjoy, but that are instead educational. The educative process can sometimes be so powerful that it warrants a photograph to reinforce the lesson.

The first image was taken in the Sculpture Garden in Moscow during 2002. It's a tight crop from a large curved wall containing numerous stone faces behind bars and barbed wire. The sculpture commemorates those who died or were incarcerated during Stalin's campaign of terror in the USSR. The numbers are uncertain, but one million victims is a conservative estimate. It's hard to capture on film, but the original artwork is very evocative. The fact that the faces are indistinct adds to the message: so many anonymous people suffering, so many stories that will never be told.

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Victims of Stalin

The second image was taken in March 2006 outside Phnom Penh, in one of the infamous Killing Fields of Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge brutally murdered vast numbers of their countrymen, perhaps approaching one quarter of the country's population. It's beyond comprehension. The aim in taking such a photograph is not to make an "artistic" image, but rather to capture a reminder of what was seen. An simple 2D image cannot compare to the experience of standing in a place where such evil happened. I do recall feeling uncomfortable taking this photo. I am no stranger to dead bodies—although not in these numbers—but then skulls are to some extent dehumanized, so it wasn't that. Perhaps it seemed a pathetic thing to be doing, taking pictures of the dead while the survivors looked on. Where we dishonoring those who once lived in those bones? Or where we honoring their memory through the sharing the knowledge of what happened?

Click thumbnail to enlarge image

Victims of Pol Pot

Sometimes it can be so hard to have any faith in humanity.

Your notes

Do these images affect you? Have you photographed disturbing monuments before, and if so how did you feel as you released the shutter?

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