Behind the curtain: Field of flags

Every day is different as a Daily Herald photojournalist, and every assignment that I cover brings a new opportunity to tell our readers’ stories.

On Thursday, May 23, I knew that I was going to Randall Oaks Park in West Dundee to photograph the assembly of a 375-foot traveling replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that serves as a reminder of the sacrifices made in one of the nation’s most controversial conflicts.

However, I did not know that next to “The Wall That Heals” they would be setting up a field of 1,578 flags to remember each of the prisoners of war or soldiers missing in action from the Vietnam War.

Both the traveling wall and the field of flags were humbling and a reminder of the how much we lost.

That Thursday it was gusty and sunny. The combination helped the flags billow in the wind and cast long shadows that helped create an interesting drone photo from about 50 feet in the air.

I just had to wait for one of the volunteers to walk into the frame of fluttering flags and adjust the focus on one of them. While the wind helped the flags fill out, it also managed to push the drone around a little bit.

A quick 10-minute drone flight, and I had one image in the bag. Then it was over to the wall to get some additional images of volunteers setting that up.