Best Foot Forward. Taipei, Taiwan. August 2017.
A trip to Taipei is incomplete until you visit the impressive Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall. This memorial stands as a beautiful and stoic testament to the late leader of the Republic of China. He dedicated his life to public service and rose to prominence as a young man due to his military prowess, memorialized by the honor guard which performs a changing of the guards at the top of every hour; and a flag closing ceremony at dusk. I watched the latter ceremony and this photo was taken as two honor guards (center) were folding the flag for the evening. The entire ceremony lasts about 30 minutes and draws a significant crowd. On this particular evening, a ring of 100+ spectators encircled the soldiers, but I was determined to isolate just the silhouettes of the young guardsmen. I did the one thing you should probably avoid with any soldier, I snuck up behind the formation, got low to the ground, and angled the lens up to capture this image. Probably not the smartest thing to do, but I think it was worth it.