No one in the United States is against what the Statue of Liberty stands for. But what does it stand for?

The poem inscribed on the Statue -- Emma Lazarus’ “The New Colossus” -- suggests that the Statue stands for America as a beacon for those who are fleeing persecution, poverty and misery. Although that conception of America has now been rejected by a substantial portion of the American population, the image of the Statue nevertheless retains that potent meaning. It is a meaning and a conception that may make large numbers of Americans uncomfortable. That is the secret of the potency of the Statute as a visual metaphor.

The image of the Statue will never be a cliché -- no matter how familiar and ubiquitous it is in our culture. In fact, the image of the Statue, if anything, has grown more radical and subversive over time.

For a photographer, the potency of the Statue’s image is also a beacon of sorts. How does a photographer tap into that potency? The simplest way is just to photograph people – including people from the Middle East, Asia and Africa -- who are visiting Liberty Island, who are very glad to be there and whose happiness is seemingly made possible by the looming Statue in the background.

Another way for a photographer to invoke the potency of the Statue’s image is to photograph the Statue from different vantage points around New York harbor that are unfamiliar to most people. These vantage points include the Brooklyn waterfront, the New Jersey Meadowlands and working class communities in Bayonne and Jersey City. For example, the Statute viewed against a decaying factory imparts meaning and irony to a subject that otherwise would be merely depressing. Or the Statue viewed against a working class residential neighborhood may carry the suggestion that the American Dream is -- after all -- alive and well.

The photographer is confronted with an abundance of potential visual metaphors fueled by the power of the image of the Statue. Most other visual metaphors are lost through overuse. I suspect that this one never will be lost.