15-Year Photo Series Showcases American Flags From Around the Country

Award-winning photographer and filmmaker Jason Lindsey’s latest project, UNFINISHED, is a “film for America’s 250th” anniversary. In the short four-minute film, Lindsey shows dozens of photos captured across America that have one big thing in common: they all feature the American flag in one form or another.

Growing up in the Midwest, Lindsey says he learned all about getting his hands dirty and what it means to put in a full day’s work. This gritty, salt-of-the-Earth upbringing has informed his decades-long photo and video career. Lindsey says he has always had a do-it-yourself spirit.

For many, that same spirit is embodied by the American flag — working hard for the people you care about and finding ways to get things done. But in today’s highly polarized political era, the American flag means many conflicting things to many different people.

In every community in the United States, the classic red, white, and blue iconography means something. It’s just not always something positive. Sometimes it’s a celebration of the way things are right now, and other times it’s a symbol of hope for how things could someday be.

“The flag is a promise. The photograph is evidence. The film is the space between them,” Lindsey says of UNFINISHED.

“I have been photographing Flags for about 15 years during my travels, and I repeatedly remember seeing flags that held a deeper meaning than the perfect American Dream,” Lindsey tells PetaPixel. “I found those way more interesting than the ones hanging by a beautiful white picket fence. The torn flags, the old stickers on doors, the ones that told a more honest picture of America.”

Eventually, over the years, Lindsey’s consistent habit of photographing the flags he came across became a real project, and he started more actively seeking them out.

There are big flags, small flags, faded ones, and flags that are part of a larger graphic. There are flags used to hawk goods and services, flags used to show pride, and flags that are seemingly just there, for arguably no obvious reason at all.

“I had an idea for a film from the photos about two years ago, but it took me about a year and a half to figure it out and try to make it powerful and politically neutral,” Lindsey says. “This was probably the 15th version of the script, and as soon as I wrote the first few lines, I knew this was finally it.”

The American flag and the ideals it aims to represent are, as Lindsey’s video explains, inherently aspirational. Lindsey hopes that viewers contemplate an essential question: how far is reality from the American Dream itself? How much distance exists between the promise of America and the lived reality of all its people?

“When I first started photographing the flag, it was less divisive and a symbol for both political parties. I never liked it when one party started claiming the flag as their own, and that made me want to publish the photos and the film even more. It really should be a symbol for all Americans. I am definitely drawn to flags that carry a deeper, more honest reflection of the realities of our country and humanity,” Lindsey explains.

“Most of us do not live up to our own ideals, but we keep striving towards those goals. I believe America should also keep striving for the ideals our flag represents. We still have lots of work to do, but I think it is worth the work.”

Much like the photographer-slash-filmmaker believes that America’s job is not yet finished, neither is his. The day after Lindsey released the film, which was on July 4, he photographed three more flags.

“It is kind of an addiction at this point,” he says.

With 15 years of focusing on a singular topic under his belt, Lindsey says that the time spent searching for flags was the most creatively engaging part of the project. Importantly, the flags themselves are not the subject, as Lindsey sees it. He says the subject is actually what the flag witnesses.

“The whole of this project is much more interesting and creative than any single photo and combining filmmaking tools took it to a very different place,” Lindsey says, adding that he hopes to find places to exhibit the work and bring the story to life beyond individual prints.

Just as the American flag means something different to all Americans, and even to many abroad, each viewer is likely to find a different photo from Lindsey’s project that resonates with them the most. For Lindsey himself, it’s a photo of a mailbox with a flag out of focus in the background.

“After making that image, I realized I had a project to chase,” Lindsey says. “It was taken in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, a year after Hurricane Katrina. I realized the flag itself was recording history and showing it to us.”

As Lindsey says, he “set out to photograph flags, and ended up photographing the country underneath them.”

Image credits: Jason Lindsey