Title • Buzludzha #8

As I mentioned when I posted my last entry, the interior of the Buzludzha monument houses a 500 sq.m. fresco which includes portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Todor Zhivkov (the leader of the People's Republic of Bulgaria from 1954 to 1989). This fresco is visible in this shot.

Additionally, there are mosaics all around the outer ring of the structure too: on the wall you can see on the far-left of this shot (my favourite from this location). These are made from stone rather than marble, and seem to be mostly celebrations of war, conflict and military power.

Of all the ones that are still visible, this was one of the most striking: a knife-wielding soldier carrying a smiling child on his shoulders. The two just don't seem to go together, ... at all. That said, I'm sure that if I'd been born in Bulgaria, and lived through the Soviet occupation, it wouldn't seem anywhere near so strange or alien.

captured camera lens focal length aperture shutter speed shooting mode exposure bias metering mode ISO flash image quality RAW converter image editor plugins (etc) cropped?

2.51pm on 15/5/11 Canon 5D Mark II EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM 25mm f/4.5 1/50 aperture priority +2/3 evaluative 100 no RAW Camera Raw Photoshop CS5 Topaz Detail transformed (skew)