I am just beginning to grasp drone technology. I am aware that it has political implications and invasion of privacy by way of taking a lens into an isolated area and opening up a world of imagery. But I also know that drum corps are using them as a means to get aerial views of drills on a football field where it is used as a writing and cleaning tool. I just saw them used along with Go-Pro cameras at the Crashed Ice even in St Paul - where it was often more exciting to follow the course on the Jumbotron rather than the incredible view that we saw standing mere feet away from the track. Photography and film is all about a point of view as well as vision. But these drone devices have such high quality that they make the human viewing possibilities beyond imagination.
Thus is the case in this new footage coming out of Auschwitz. Much of it resembles the stark scenery of Schindler's List. It is now almost a century old and has not changed remarkably at all. But what these drones do from their bird's-eye perch, is enable us to grasp just how large this complex is. This is not the mere cells and fields we have come to expect. It is instead a whole village where lives were detoured and ended. Epic is a word that easily comes to mind. Located in Poland, it took over 1.1 million lives and this does not include the other hordes that escaped. Haunting indeed.
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