Find the cost of freedom - a grateful nation.

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  daleeman

• Jun 4, 2012

Thank God for their service and sacrifice.

 

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  Thomas Bertilsson

• Jun 4, 2012

It's an important moment, so I think you should focus on this composition. If anything, crop a little off the top, tone down the surrounding a little by dampening the tonality there, and lighten the portion where the hand-over is.

 

• pentaxuser

• Jun 4, 2012

Because of the nature of the subject the involved onlookers are essential. They actually add to the message as they are involved and not onlookers in the detached sense of the word "onlooker". By comparison the other picture looks almost staged with the same people's heads cut off. pentaxuser

 

• pbromaghin

• Jun 4, 2012

Yes, the other crop is probably a mistake. I think I was trying to evoke the memory of being a teenager and standing next to my mother as she was handed my father's flag. One feels very alone in that moment. All that exists are you and the man with the flag.

 

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  jovo

• Jun 5, 2012

The face of the mother who is about to receive the flag from a Marine on his knee instantly brought me to tears. Wonderful, moving, and important.

 

• pbromaghin

• Jun 5, 2012

Thank you all for the kind words.

 

• pbromaghin

• Sep 2, 2013

Forty-one years since I and my mother received my father's flag. This photograph still makes me cry. He was twice the man I will ever be.