But every photograph is a slice of time.

It contains what was in front of the lens for the fraction of a second the shutter was open.

It contains nothing before that moment and nothing after.

It cannot contain the four days of brutal fighting that preceded it, or the context in which the men who raised that flag had been living.

It cannot contain the deaths of Strank, Block, and Sousley, who would be killed in the weeks following the flag raising.

It cannot contain the full weight of what it meant to be alive on Iwo Jima in February 1945.