National Wreaths Across America Day - Van Meter, Iowa

On December 10, 2011, I attended the National Wreaths Across America Day at the Iowa Veterans Cemetery in Van Meter, Iowa. On a crisp cold windy morning, families, friends and the great men and women that serve our country, layed wreaths next to the loved ones that have been lost.

With a dusting of snow on the ground back dropping the tombstones and bright colored wreaths, it was truly a special site to be seen. I can only imagine what Arlington National Cemetery would look like on the same day.

 In 1992, a man named Morill Worchester found himself with a surplus of Christmas wreaths and drew on a childhood memory of a visit to Arlington National Cemetery. He wanted to honor those that call Arlington National Cemetery their final resting place so he send the surplus of wreaths to Arlington to be layed on the graves. He did this quietly until 2005, when a photo of Arlington was circulated on the internet. The emotion that this photo brought to others, the Worchester family, veterans and other groups soon formed Wreaths Across America. Now Wreaths Across America lays over 220,000 wreaths across the entire United States.

The images below were taking at Iowa Veterans Cemetery with the D90 and 18-105mm. I shot in RAW along with aperture priority mode to allow control over final post processing and depth of field. Once on the computer in ViewNX, I changed the white balance to daylight and the picture control to the custom landscape-nature control.  The shadow adjustment slider was used if necessary. In PSE8, I used layer masks and VirtualPhotographer plug-in to create the special black and white treatment on some these images.

For more information about Wreaths Across America, please visit www.wreathsacrossamerica.org

Thank You to the veterans and their families that have served this great nation to preserve our freedom in the United States of America.

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