Retiring Colors

Posted by Russ Devan (New Hanover, United States) on 29 July 2008 in People & Portrait and Portfolio.

In the camp site where we stayed at Boy Scout summer camp, there is an old, rustic, wooden flag pole. Each morning before breakfast, the Senior Patrol Leader (the senior Boy Scout who is in charge of the troop) would call all the boys into formation and our troop would have a brief flag ceremony where we would raise the flag in our camp site for the day. In the evening, just before dinner, the flag would be lowered in a ceremony called "Retreat". The flag would be slowly lowered and ceremoniously folded into a triangle by three scouts. Because we would be gathering for dinner immediately afterward, all scouts would be in Class A uniform during Retreat. (It is the tradition at every Boy Scout camp that all scouts must eat dinner in full Class A uniform. No exceptions. Ever. Period.)

This particular evening, three of our newest scouts volunteered to conduct the flag ceremony at Retreat. Of the over 1,100 photos that I shot of our scouts that week in camp, this is my favorite. I really like the simplicity of it and how the scout and the flag are backlit. I also enjoy the sense of pride in watching one of our newest scouts put into practice what he was taught on how to appropriately lower and fold the flag.

"The Master in the art of living makes little distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation, his love and his religion. He hardly knows which is which. He simply pursues his vision of excellence in whatever he does, leaving others to decide whether he is working or playing. To him he is always doing both."
- Zen Buddhist Text

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