D-Day Reenactment with B-17 - Limited Edition 1 of 7 Photograph

Van Gogh inspired this work with a side order of Rousseau as I stood atop the cliffs overlooking Omaha Beach, where D-Day had taken place on the October afternoon. The sun had been out in the morning, but I wanted a heavier atmosphere, as after all, I was working with a land and seascape where thousands of men had been killed or wounded in June 1944. I hadn't been back there for decades, after the initial visit of summer 1955. Then I was a kid and my folks wanted to show me where my uncle had come ashore in his Sherman tank.Tommy was silent about his experiences of the war, and it took his death in 2005, to find that he had been awarded a Silver Star for 'Gallantry in Action' when he was 22. He just couldn't talk about it, but it turned out he had stormed a German machine gun nest armed with nothing more than a pistol and saved the lives of his company.