"Spirit" - Iwo Jima Memorial

The assignment for this week is "Spirit".

In thinking about how I would approach this subject I had several ideas.

I thought about cheerleaders, of course. "We've got spirit, yes we do. We've got spirit, how about you?!"

I thought about church and The Holy Spirit.

I thought about the spirit and liveliness I find in my children every day.

I'd still like to try and capture each of those things, but the one I ultimately went after was the spirit of soldiers and battles and war.

This photo, taken in 1945 during the Battle of Iwo Jima is simply legendary. It has come to represent the feelings of determination, strength, and triumph that can be felt in the midst of grief, exhaustion, and destruction.

There is a monument in my town that is dedicated to the Connecticut residents who died during the Battle of Iwo Jima. Not surprisingly, it is a statue that mimics this very scene.

I went out to take photos there before work one cold morning last week. Of course, I forgot to bring my boots, so my pretty suede loafers limited me to taking photos on the shoveled path.

The sun was just rising high enough to be part of some of the photos, and though it was a bit cloudy, I thought the sky was bright enough to keep the light from being too flat.

You can see the sun rising in the lower right corner, but the street light that is peeking out there too bothered me, so I cropped just a bit.

I also played with the shadows and contrast to keep the statue as a silhouette. I'm happy with how it came out.

I also went around to the other side of the statue out of curiosity.

I was interested in the face of the soldier that was facing me, but it doesn't come through very clearly in the photo.

I tried to lighten the photo and adjust the highlights so his face is more clear, but I don't think it worked. I think it just became an awkward angle of the statue. I don't really feel any of the power of the moment from this angle.

Finally, I went back and took another look at the soldiers. I became interested in the outstretched hands.

It didn't seem to make sense to show the hands without the flag, so I tried to find an angle that would capture both.

I like the angle, but when I saw the photo on the computer I decided that the sky was too flat, and the white stripes on the flag are too blue, so I tried to adjust for both.

In the end, I found that the best way to improve the colors was to run a warming filter over it. I also lightened the photo as a whole.

I like it, but decided to try one more effect, just to see what would happen.

In sepia the photo seems a lot less modern, which may work in this case. I miss the vibrancy of the flag as opposed to the monochrome bronze, but I think I still see the "spirit" I was looking for in the photo.