John Conn bought the fence flag at an art show where he was exhibiting and selling his photographs. "The guy next to me had painted American flags on dune fences," John says. "They're about two feet by four feet, and I'm thinking, I can do something with this, so I bought one. I get it home and then I get the idea: it's an American flag, I'll travel around America with it and photograph it with people and places until it falls apart. I figure it's a two-year project."

You're looking at what is literally the first frame of that project. John took the flag to Long Island's Jones Beach, tossed it in the water and got the shot as the tide brought it back. He made the photo with a D700 and an AF Fisheye-NIKKOR 16mm f/2.8D. The exposure was 1/320 second at f/16 and ISO 200 with the camera set for aperture priority and Matrix metering.

"This is the ‘coming to America' shot," he says. "We all washed ashore."

The fence flag doesn't roll up or fold, so traveling with it can be an issue, especially if you don't have a car—and John, who lives in New York City, doesn't. For the Jones Beach photo he talked a friend into driving. "He liked the idea so much," John says, "that he wants to drive for day trips, weekend trips, maybe weeklong trips with me and the flag."

John has a list of places in mind. "We want to bring it to Death Valley and the Four Corners. I want to take it underwater when I go diving in Florida. I want to hit a lot of iconic American places, but the most important thing is the un-iconic places. America is about those, too, and I want local football games and the 4th of July parade in some small town somewhere."

Some of John's ideas are probably out of reach. "I'd like to go skydiving with it," he says. "It would be a great photograph. The only problem is, I don't think I could control it in the air...."

We'll stop here. There are actually several problems with the skydiving idea, but with someone as resourceful and determined as John Conn, you never know.

Maybe we'll catch up with him later on and see how he and the grand old flag are doing.