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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