The WWII Memorial 2004!

D-0Day

It’s been a decade since the opening of the WWII Memorial and this time I actually got to go to the ceremony!  During the original opening ceremonies I was making sure I secured this image for the book and so spent my day at the airport waiting for my friend Jeff Tinsley of Smithsonian who  took this picture.  The National Park Service helicopter routinely took Jeff up as images done for the government are “public domain” and so I would have access to the images as long as they didn’t get “lost.”

During that week,  Boeing printed and distributed 1.6 million posters of one of my night images and the Washington Post ran 39 pages on the WWII Memorial.  A productive time but no one I believe thought that the WWII Memorial would become the most popular attraction on the Washington Mall drawing 4.5-5 million people a year.  Too bad they don’t have a bookstore, eh?

TENTH ANNIVERSARY