PETER BARKER

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THE ROOFTOPS OF AARHUS

Here’s a photo I took a while ago of the rooftops of Aarhus from the city’s Art Museum.  The museum had installed a 360 degree walkway on its top floor conceived by the artist Olafur Eliasson which, as you can see, had colour gradations all the way around. Impressive!  My wife and I were doing a house swap and so had the chance to get to know the city over a couple of weeks.  It’s my ideal kind of city: big enough to be interesting but not so big that you drown.   The photo was a contender for my series The Smart Panopticon but in the end I decided that it didn’t fit visually. It was taken with a little digital point and shoot which I eventually decided to get rid of because it was just too seductive: massive zoom, great image quality, slipped into the pocket - everything was just too easy. These devices flatter to deceive. They convince you that you are such a good photographer so you never get any better.