After this picture 'The Polices of the Hell' won the Best of Show of Plano Photographers Club's February 2015 Photo Competition, I was asked to write an article to introduce it in the PPC's newsletter. Here is the Article:
The Polices of the Hell (八家將) originated from the Chinese folk beliefs and myths, usually referred to a few members of God. The legend started from the eight generals catching evil exorcism for Wufu Emperor. These generals became the gods of the underworld and were also known as guards for the temples of the nether Gods such as Yama (King of Hell) and Cheng Huang (City Gods). Their responsibilities are to capture ghosts and evils and provide protections to people. Today in Taiwan the believers in the temples dressed up and maked up as The Police of the Hells in certain annual ritual to perform martial art under the fierce explosion of firecraker. To me, capturing such a scene are both a heaven and a hell for a photographers. This particular ritual happened at Tau Yuan, about one hour drive from Taipei, in February of 2015. Before I went to Tau Yuan an experienced friend reminded me to bring ear plugs, mask, and wear somthing that I can affoard to lose in case it catch the spark of the firework. The shooting went on rather smooth, both my flesh and eqiuipment remain intact afterward except for one time during shooting I drop the ear plug and thought I'll become deaf for the rest of my life. Camera settings for this picture are: Nikon d800, Nikkor 24-120mm lens at 66mm, 1/320s, F4, ISO400.
This picture also won the PPC's digital image of the year in June, 2015.
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