Through 50 States in 70 Days (with an American flag)
August 20, 2015 12:53 PM Subscribe
Through 50 States in 70 Days (with an American flag)
General Peter Pace (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and his wife asked my friend Larry, a retired Maine schoolteacher, to carry an American flag through all 50 states. He invited me to come along as navigator and trip photographer.
Some 30,000+ miles (and 8,300+ photographs) later, Mrs. Pace, the ship’s sponsor, presented the flag as a commissioning gift to the 4th U.S.S. America.
Apart from the usual challenge of picturing the same object in many different settings, I wanted to show that the flag belongs not just to right-wing politicians, car dealers, and Christian schools, but to all of us, including firefighters, highway or train workers, snowmobile dealers, tour guides, ticket takers, re-enactors, and wanderers, as well as people from history like Mary ‘Mother’ Jones and Sojourner Truth.
General Peter Pace (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff) and his wife asked my friend Larry, a retired Maine schoolteacher, to carry an American flag through all 50 states. He invited me to come along as navigator and trip photographer.
Some 30,000+ miles (and 8,300+ photographs) later, Mrs. Pace, the ship’s sponsor, presented the flag as a commissioning gift to the 4th U.S.S. America.
Apart from the usual challenge of picturing the same object in many different settings, I wanted to show that the flag belongs not just to right-wing politicians, car dealers, and Christian schools, but to all of us, including firefighters, highway or train workers, snowmobile dealers, tour guides, ticket takers, re-enactors, and wanderers, as well as people from history like Mary ‘Mother’ Jones and Sojourner Truth.
Role: navigator, editor, trip photographer
This project was posted to MetaFilter by tractorfeed on August 20, 2015: Through 50 States in 70 Days (with an American flag)
Have you thought about assembling this as a book?
10 months after the traveling part has ended, I'm still trying to sort through the photographs. (And have tossed out about 55% of them.) I have thought it would be interesting to combine published text (either mine or the other guy's, maybe in book form) with # references to photographs posted online in chronological order (unlike on the Facebook page – run by the general's assistant, not us – which is pretty scattershot). That way the cost of publishing dozens (or even hundreds) of photographs could be avoided.
posted by LeLiLo at 5:20 PM on August 20, 2015
10 months after the traveling part has ended, I'm still trying to sort through the photographs. (And have tossed out about 55% of them.) I have thought it would be interesting to combine published text (either mine or the other guy's, maybe in book form) with # references to photographs posted online in chronological order (unlike on the Facebook page – run by the general's assistant, not us – which is pretty scattershot). That way the cost of publishing dozens (or even hundreds) of photographs could be avoided.
posted by LeLiLo at 5:20 PM on August 20, 2015
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posted by lharmon at 2:16 PM on August 20, 2015