Standing at Checkpoint Charlie, I couldn’t help thinking what a nightmare it must have been to have survived WWII and then to be stuck on the wrong side of Berlin. That’s where I took this photo from — the wrong side, the east side. How excruciating, to go from the certainty of death to the torture of a captive life.
Now, though, it is easy to find those young enough to have never known a divided city and it felt strange for me to be able to cross the inset line of bricks that mark where the wall once was with ease. It felt as though I should be able to feel the pain of that horrible division, that it should be darker on the east side — if only by a little bit — but there was nothing. No feeling at all.
Time goes on, the past is the past. Only the future is important.
B&W and contrast with Mill Colour, HDR with Pro HDR, cropping with Pastebot.
