Back in April 2006, I visited Berlin.  Of all the photographs I took there, these are among my favourites as, although they’re of destruction, they represent the ongoing redevelopments taking place in the German capital following re-unification.  Plus, to me, the cranes look like giant dinosaurs nibbling at the building.

The first two were taken on the north-east corner of Friedrichstraße and Unter den Linden.

Apart from appearing like a mother mechasaur about to nuzzle her infant, I felt the first photo was quite a stark image so it got bleached a little to emphasize that, while the second received some yellowing to bring out the contrast in the mountainous rubble pile that particular crane was king of.

Continuing east took me to the site of the demolition of the Palast der Republik.

The lines of the building caught my eye, reminding me of the opening for North By Northwest that eventually turns out to be the United Nations building in New York.  (I don’t remember having that thought when I was actually outside the UN building though—silly me!)  Unfortunately, the fencing prevented me from getting close enough to get the diagonals sufficiently steep, and I decided to continue the demolition vehicle series.  I’m not sure why now, but I thought this image benefited from being a little over-saturated.

Later in the day, when I walked back past the first site, I stopped again to take some more pictures.  This time I was there for about 10 minutes as I waited for one particular machine to bend into the right pose again.  When I finally turned around to leave, I noticed a whole bunch of copycat tourists—presumably having been susceptible to the SLR effect I’ve read about from professional photographers—had been behind me.  It’s fortunate that I hadn’t noticed them earlier, as I’d have become really quite self-conscious had I been aware of them jumping on the bandwagon.