Oh Say Can You See

Georgia Capitol & Liberty Plaza Flags

For a couple of months, I have been working on getting my photos in a calendar that a local business sends to their customers. I was given a list of preferred subject matter for each month, and I did my best to send something for every month. Unfortunately, I just didn’t have what they wanted for July—fireworks or something patriotic. I had fireworks, but there was nothing else in the photo, so they could have been from anywhere. The main theme of this calendar is Georgia and that had to be apparent.

I was determined, however, to come up with something patriotic, despite this being September. I needed to do some scouting in downtown Atlanta for another shot, and I had heard that there was a flag mural on a building, so I set out on a hunt. I found the building, and unfortunately, it was pink and teal instead of red and blue. Although I actually liked it, it wasn’t quite right for this.

I couldn’t believe my luck, however, when I turned down a street by the Georgia Capitol, and low and behold, there was a bunch of flags moving in the breeze. I circled around, found a parking place and got out to see why this group of flags was in this particular location. It’s called Liberty Plaza, and I had never seen it before. Turns out that it’s less than a year old, and it honors the Georgia signers of the Declaration of Independence. Each flag represents one of the original 13 colonies.

The lighting wasn’t right, which is often hit or miss, so I took a chance and went back the next morning. My timing was perfect. It was very windy, and you really can’t successfully photograph flags without some wind. I fired off a lot of shots before I got all flags fully open at the same time. It was a cloudy morning, but all of a sudden, the sun came through long enough to light up the gold on the dome of the capitol and most of the clouds moved out of the way. Would have like there to be no clouds, but all-in-all, it was a good morning. And we have a winner for July.

What's your favorite patriotic place in Georgia?