2011-01-28

Your Last Stop

Outside Gap, Pennsylvania
While in Pennsylvania this past spring, I happened upon a graveyard one afternoon.  I find graveyards notoriously difficult to photograph, mainly because of the amount of subject (undifferentiated) in the viewfinder.  For a Canadian, seeing this many flags in a cemetery is unusual (I've been to Germany many times and one rarely sees flags).  I'm not sure this photo works, but its an attempt to portray the primacy of one's duty to the state with their own self becoming blurred in the process.   

2 comments:

J. Evan Kreider said...

I also find that the presence of the flag declares that the limited time spent in the military (assuming one then survived) was the single most important thing in their life. If so, that is unbelievably sad. What a waste, to devote life to taking life. On the other hand, what sort of symbol would signify that the deceased was a grandfather to all the kids on the whole block for decades? Do we need more symbols?

Mark Kreider said...

This photo is thought provoking. Flags divide people. To me the flags are a remnant of a past when loyalty to one's soil and ideas that governed it were important. Now, in death, none of it matters and I assume all the souls are together in one place or another. I very much like that so many of your photos tell or conjure stories.