In November 2019 I travelled to Normandy for a bit of a break. Ideally I'd have liked to have been there in June but being a wedding photographer means that you don't get any free time between April and October. I've always had the utmost admiration and appreciation for the greatest generation, so much so I have a WWII themed tattoo sleeve down my right arm. I can't imagine what it might have been like to storm a beach, early one June morning in 1944 with the fate of the world literally being on your shoulders, where the only options were total success or total failure. And lets not forget that as I write this, I am 32 years old, and the average age of a person on that beech was 20. The hardest part for me is knowing that those that died would never learn whether their efforts were in vain. I worry that those who lived might feel like their momentous victory has been forgotten, that their sacrifices on that day are a distant memory. When I arrived on my first day at Utah Beach, I didn't know what I'd feel. Initially I felt anger that the people using the beach seemed to just be going about their daily lives without a care in the world... but then it hit me - the fact that these people can enjoy the beach as they wish is down to the sacrifices that were made 75 years ago. If it hadn't been for those brave young men, willing to give everything for success, then the people using those beaches today wouldn't have been able to do so and the world would have looked a very different place. The greatest memory to those that died is the fact that people of all ages can enjoy that sand today. And that's when I had the idea to take 5 images, one of each landing beach, showing how the beaches were used now. I envisioned these images as being in print which is why they're on a white inlay with nothing but the name below.
