Fuji Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red

Lightmancer

Legend
Location
Sunny Frimley
Name
Bill Palmer
The ceramic installation at the Tower of London entitled "Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red" is only in place until the 11th of November. It is striking in and of itself and all the more memorable for being ephemeral. Each of the 888,246 poppies is individually made, and put in place by hand between August and November. Each one represents a British military fatality during the Great War. They will each be sold afterwards, to raise money for service charities.

At the moment, I'll wager that this is the most photographed art installation in the UK (The Tower of London is the 7th most popular visitor attraction in the country in it's own right). It's free to see, and entirely self-policing - people simply make way for each other. It was fascinating to hear the comments being made, which ranged from "awesome" to "it looks better on telly", from "really moving" to "they could have done something better with the money" - to each their own.

The day we went it was rainy, damp and dank - and crowded. I really wanted to take a photo or two that captured the tone and the mood of the piece, but also was a little different from the hundreds of thousands of other photos already up on the internet. I hope I succeeded.

If you are able, I urge you to go and see for yourself before the 11th of next month; the woman who said it looks better on telly was very much mistaken. I would defy anyone with a shred of humanity not to see it and be moved, especially when you remember that each poppy represents a single human life.

I used my X-Pro1, with the 18-135WR. I was grateful for that weather resistance...

This is a general shot, to give you some idea of scale:
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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 24 par Lightmancer, on ipernity

And this, I think, shows that each is an individual flower:
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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 28 par Lightmancer, on ipernity

The rest, you can "caption" for yourselves:
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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 20 par Lightmancer, on ipernity

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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 16 par Lightmancer, on ipernity

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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 9 par Lightmancer, on ipernity

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Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red 14 par Lightmancer, on ipernity
 
Amin, you are so right... Bill, thank you for these images - the experience must have been overwhelming. So much that those of us weren't there can never truly understand. We can hope that we never ever experience this again and do the best we can to do so.
 
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