Capture the flag

One of the things I love about visiting the U.S. is how proud most citizens are of the flag. It's difficult to go for a walk anywhere without seeing at least a couple crisp examples of the stars and stripes fluttering in the wind.

This occurred to me almost on a subconscious level as the kids were drying off after a late-afternoon swim. I looked over the fence and saw a particularly brilliant example fluttering on a car antenna. I knew I needed to capture it now, before the sun got too low in the sky.

I wandered over to the car, looked surreptitiously around to ensure that its owner wasn't sitting on a nearby porch with a shotgun, and walked circles around it to find just the right angle to highlight the beautiful colors that just a few seconds earlier had reached out to me.

In the end, I think it's the light that makes this shot. The ghostlike images of the stars behind the red and white stripes betray the humdrumness (yes, I'm still inventing words) of a small flag mounted on a car. Beauty can indeed be found in the strangest of places.

I chose this perspective because it's one that isn't often chosen by photographers. That pretty much describes why I shoot what I shoot: because I always want to see something different from the norm. I've sat through way too many yawn-inducing slide shows in my lifetime, and I don't ever want to subject anyone else to the same old views of the same old topics.

So if some of my work comes across as visually bizarro on occasion, that's all part of the design.

Your turn: I've got scads of vacation pictures to post. Most of 'em will end up on the accompanying Flickr page (see sidebar to the right) in the days to come. But what kinds of images do you want posted - and written about - here?

Click the image to open up a higher-resolution version.