b'CC BY-SA 2.0https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0 Attribution: Robert J. Fisch, via Wikimedia Commons A PICTUREST PAULS SURVIVES (1940)IS WORTH AIt was an image that defined a nations resistance. Herbert Masons memorable photograph of St Pauls Cathedral, taken THOUSANDthe morning after a bombing raid during the London Blitz, is rightly regarded as one of the greatest war images of all time. The black-and-white format of the photograph gives a WORDS sense of the brutal nature of the air raids, a raging fire trying to consume Londons great landmark. Yet St Pauls stands firm, light overcoming the darkness. The photograph is made up of contraststhe zigzag line of the roofs set against the Cathedrals round dome; the darkness of the foreground 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of Steven Sasson creating in 1975 the firstcontrasting with the bright front of St Pauls self-contained portable digital camera. The images, originally in black andand the billowing grey clouds. Europe was white, were digitally recorded onto a cassette tape, each image taking twenty- already in flames and Britain faced a similar three seconds to process. Smartphonesfate, symbolised in the picture by the ruined with cameras are now universal, basichouses. So much of the destruction in the equipment in the twenty-first century,photograph is hidden by smoke and is left to and it is remarkable to reflect on howour imagination, so that it seems incredible controversy would have been avoided onthat amongst the flames the Cathedral is still much debated moments in modern historystanding. Yet this image of St Pauls inspired if a thousand digital cameras had beenthe country to go on, not to despair, and to present at the scene. To mark thiskeep believing that good would prevail. The major anniversary in the history ofCathedrals towers and dome emerge from photography, Mrs Donaghue andthe smoke of the inferno, an inferno in which Mr Khan in the Religious Studiesso many Londoners suffered, and symbolise Department choose iconicthe character and spirit of the people. And it photographs from the lastwas this Blitz spirit all those years ago which hundred years, and explain howcouldnt be broken.each image speaks more than aMrs Donoghuethousand words.16'