As you walk along the quays in Dublin City, there's a haunting but strangely beautiful memorial to the Irish Famine. The set of statues which makes up the memorial represent the starving and dying people of Ireland that were forced to emigrate during the horrific famine of the 19th century. They were erected in 1997 and are sculpted by artist Rowan Gillespie.

I've photographed these statues many times over the years, as have many others. They have become something of an icon of the city, and as I said, while they are a stark reminder of a terrible time in our history, they are also strangely beautiful. On a bright morning last week I was walking by and I noticed that someone had put flowers in the hands of the statues, which were beginning to wilt, which I thought was kind of metaphorical, so I got some shots of the scene while I was there.

There is a tendency to try and make images like this stark, and dark or even black and white, but I thought the juxtaposition of the grim subject and the bright sunshine and wilting flowers was kind of surreal.

Shot on a Canon 5D Mark II, 24-105mm Lens. Processed in Lightroom using Vivid Extreme.