Very powerful and touching image. An apt one for the topic.

Dan,

Congratulations again, almost Mr. Perfect (only one of Dan's images--one of the best--has failed to achieve featured status).

Monday morning quarterbacking: I'm assuming this image was scanned for a print and that the print was made for newspaper publication. How close am I? I wonder why you didn't intensify the true black areas, put some tone in the whites where appropirate, and clean up some of the dust marks, if that's what they are.

I know you'll understand my questions about this moment that you composed and captured so well.

This was originally created for a newspaper I worked for back during the first Gulf War.

It was scanned for this theme from the original b&w neg. I think the contrast looks pretty good on my screen and maybe there is a difference in viewing it. I don't know. I didn't want to make it too stark as I don't think the moment should be. I take photos like this to give respect to the soldier and give them the honor and respect they deserve. The mother btw requested and displayed the full photo story package in her home after it was published. That is also mostly why I didn't spot it since it is about the image and I didn't think it needed to be perfectly clean to get the point across. I was also being lazy as I hate scanning now that digital has jaded me. Takes too much time and this month I'm swamped with stuff like you can't believe.