The Final Salute.

If a picture is truly worth a thousand words, the one above is worth an entire encyclopedia. Normally I will explain more about the photo featured at the top of “Snap. Shot.” at the closing, but this one certainly deserves more attention and focus than a regular blog.

Let me begin, I did not take this photo; it actually was part of a prize winning essay that won the “Pulitzer Prize" and was honored in the "Picture of the Year International" through the University of Missouri’s school of Journalism yearly photo contest. It’s called, " Final Salute.” It had every right to win; to me, every inch of this photo tells a story. You have the dignity of a soldier being taken back home to his or her final resting place, the soldiers who are on guard to make sure this brave individual arrives safely, and the passengers on this commercial aircraft looking out to see what’s going on. That’s why I am sure this won, it’s also why I am so engrossed with this incredible photograph.

The story behind the photo involves a photo journalist and news reporter, who for 1 year, follows U.S. Marines stationed in Colorado at Buckley Air Force Base whose duty it is to notify the families of the deaths of their sons in Iraq and then escort their bodies home for burial, the photographer's name is Todd Heisler and at the time he was with the Rocky Mountain News. He saw it all…the good, the hard and the painful. This shot, as he described it, was one of the most painful he took---I can understand why. A rare situation, he was allowed to photograph on the tarmac at a commercial airport as the soldiers placed their brother or sister into the cargo hold. Flying caskets and bodies to locations around the world is an everyday occurrence in the airline industry, capturing a photo like this is not. That’s what is so amazing about this picture, you have to look at it and wonder what everyone is thinking.

In photography we often will take a photo of our child, pet, or occasion that brings a camera out---in moments like this, “The Kiss” in Times Square by Alfred Eisenstaedt or millions of other iconic photos, these are the ones that you never get bored looking at. Seeing Aunt Millie at the beach with her goofy hat on is funny to the family, but it gets stuffed away into a photo album or maybe into a frame in the hall; it’s passed by every day and may or may not catch a passing glance. Photos like the one above speak volumes and never stop people from talking and looking at them. That’s why I love photography---when you capture the moment.

The photo above is one of my favorites; I first saw it at my son’s graduation at the University of Missouri. We were walking past the Journalism School when to my left, tucked away, were winners and nominees for Picture of the Year. There were some truly incredible photos on the wall; however, only two of them stuck with me---the other was of a greyhound race. When I did more research on this photograph, I learned it was not for sale. Not that I would want to buy an original, okay I would, but couldn’t afford it, I knew I had to have a small photo just to remind me of the power of photography. To me, this is the hand’s down winner.

Thanks for stopping by.