“The American Glory,” is a small, flat-bottomed riverboat – our home for a week of cruising along the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. It appropriately flies a large American flag from its stern, and on this day, that flag responds to a strong wind, heavy rain, and the motion of the ship itself. The stripes on the left hand side of the flag are curving diagonally, while the stripes on its right remain horizontal. This directional contrast energizes the image. I lowered my camera to also include four horizontal bars of the ship’s railing as a foreground layer. The bars reminded me of music paper, preprinted with staffs ready for musical notation. The musical reference joins the fluttering flag stripes to render a “Star Spangled Banner.”