Unpatriotic Flags

I'm not a great fan of patriotism. I'm not all that proud to be British; my country has carried out far too many despicable deeds, supposedly for my benefit, for me to show it any particular loyalty. Patriotism exists to stir up tribal feelings of difference, of 'we're better than you'. It, along with religion, should have no place in the modern world.

Flags represent this tribalistic desire to be different, to be competitive, to maintain the petty interests of nationalism over the greater needs of globalism. But not all flags flutter in the breeze, stirring the emotions of the morally destitute. Objects can be flags, controlling the undesirable.

Here are two examples of flags fulfilling that function in image making. In the first, taken a couple of days ago in Ludlow, Shrophire, I'm using a shop awning to not only flag the sun off the lens and get rid of unwanted flare, but also to remove the bright sky which might otherwise overpower the image.

In the second, the flag is a crocketed pinnacle. I tried hard to make a three-shot out of the pinnacles and the weathervane post but I couldn't get the spacing to my satisfaction without leaping off the tower and shooting it as I went down. I'm not prepared to suffer that much for my art.