Valor No. 2

Valor No. 2

The Iwo Jima Marine Corps Memorial sits on a gentle grassy hill in Arlington, Virginia,
adjacent to the Arlington National Cemetery, across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.

The statue, by Austrian-born American sculptor Felix de Weldon, depicts five Marines and a U.S. Navy sailor raising an American flag on Mount Suribachi, Iwo Jima, after a bloody battle with Japanese forces in World War Two. It was actually inspired by a famous war-time photograph by Joe Rosenthal.

I had shot the Iwo Jima Memorial on previous occasions, but a 2013 project of narrating and producing a program about it for VOA Learning English inspired me to return for some fresh images of it for the web site.

It also occasioned a newly awakened appreciation for the work of Felix de Weldon, as I feel the hours spent with the cameras on that hill overlooking Washington enabled me to “see” the Iwo Jima statue, in ways I’d never seen it before.

This photograph of detail of de Weldon's sculpture is available in a limited edition of archival gallery prints and as a custom printed Photo Note Card.

Photo + Design ©2013 Steve Ember