Arlington Military Funeral I

These photos are from my mother-in-law's funeral which took place Dec. 31, 2007 in Arlington National Cemetery. Both my in-laws were retired officers, my wife's father career military and her mother an Army nurse in WWII. When my father-in-law died, a videographer from some organization contacted my wife to shoot the full honors ceremony, but he never showed up so when her mother died and we found out that she qualified for full honors, my wife asked me to photograph as much of it as I could. Naturally, I had to show discretion (something I don't indulge in with my cartoons and other works) which meant that much of the time, I literally WAS shooting from the hip, without looking through the viewfinder or screen. I was surprised that most of the shots came out "pretty good, considering". But some of them were very good, only requiring a little cropping or rotating.

This is the arrival of the honor guard at Arlington Chapel.

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