An Unfortunate Gesture
So, I’m in Germany. Munich, to be precise. It’s getting late in the afternoon and the level of the sun is quite low. I’m trying to take a photo of a building in a square, one with archways and statues. Try as I might, I can’t quite squeeze it in without taking quite a few steps back. As I get to the point where the whole thing fits in the viewfinder, the sun peeks out over the top of the building causing lens flare. Damn. Back in the day I used to have a good SLR which I’d always keep a lens hood on for this very reason, but I’d have to improvise …
I looked at the screen of the digital camera and then put my hand out in front of the camera slightly, just over the top of the lens. It’s a fine art, blocking lens flare like this. My hand was in the picture, so I started moving the hand up, out, a little to the left, back to the right, just trying to find that sweet spot where the building was in view and the lens flare was eliminated. Finally, with my hand out at full stretch just above the camera , I got the correct spot – at last!
It was at this point that I realised I was standing in the streets of Munich doing what appeared to be a Nazi salute to a building that was a significant building in the Third Reich’s past.