Flag Raising, 2003

Toned silver gelatin print, 17.25 x 19.5 finished to 27.5 x 24.5 inches. Private collections.

The most reproduced photograph in the history of photography is not without controversy. It was made by Joe
Rosenthal in 1945 atop Mount Suribachi on the island of Iwo Jima. Rosenthal spent years defending the accusation
that he directed the action in the photograph. In his book, Pictures on a Page, Harold Evans defends Rosenthal
noting, “No genius could have posed the picture if he had spent a year in a studio with lights and a wind machine.”
My version did not use a wind machine; instead I formed the miniature 48-star flag by soaking it in matt medium,
shaping it, allowing it to dry and sewing it to a wooden dowel. The soldiers are one-foot tall dolls; the sky, a painted
background and the foreground is made of rock and mud on a Styrofoam support.