Mum went into hospital on Tuesday for her leg to be re-operated on. Her femur which she shattered in December was still not healing and a bone graft was called for. It has been an incredibly tense, stressful time. Because of this, I have not written a blog this week. Instead I will be sharing some photographs that caught my attention. As they say, “A picture paints a thousand words….”

The story of August Landmasser is amazing as it is tragic. Landmasser fell in love with a Jewish woman who, before they could marry, was sent to a concentration camp. This picture captures Landmasser refusing to partake in the Nazi salute during a public rally in 1936.

This photograph simply horrifies me! What did this young child think as he passed the mass of corpses? If he is still alive, he is now in his eighties. How has this scarred him, I wonder?

This is a Sooty Tern chick waiting for it’s parents to bring back food. It speaks to me of vulnerability and “the hugeness of the world!” I want to shout out: “Hey, parents, don’t leave your chick like this. Get back immediately!”

These are the hands of Russian piano virtuoso, Sergey Rachmaninov, 1943. I love pictures of people’s hands. They say so much!

Cartoonist R. Crumb, New York City 1968 literally ‘up the pole’!  I look at this photograph and smile hugely. I just love the reactions of the other passengers!

Isn’t this incredible! In Miyakejima, Japan, an active volcano has spewed poisonous gas for decades. Rather than leave, the 3,000 inhabitants decided to wear gas masks 24/7 so they could remain on the island.

This comment by the photographer, Margaret Bourke-White says everything: “I saw and photographed the piles of naked, lifeless bodies, the human skeletons in furnaces, the living skeletons who would die the next day….Using the camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me.”

This woman’s face says it all. We have cyclones, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, floods and terrible wars.
How many similar faces exist in our world?

As I said this week’s blog is different. It is made up of pictures, each telling a unique story. They will mean different things to each one of you. “If a picture paints a thousand words…”
I have painted eight thousand words.
Consider and reflect!

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Photo Credits :

Photo 1 – source unknown, photo 2 – George Roger, photo 3 – Fritz Goro, photo 4 – Eric Schaal, photo 5  – Harry Benson,  photo 6 – source unknown, photo 7 – Margaret Bourke-White,    photo 8 –Larry Burrows