Twenty-five of the 6,000 life-sized terracotta soldiers guarding the underground tomb of China’s first emperor appear to be on the move in this image. By zooming in with a telephoto lens on just one small part of one rank, and then tilting my camera, I create diagonal flow from upper left to lower right, which gives the soldiers a sense of movement. The most important details in this picture are the faces, no two of which are alike, and the hands, which help bring the bodies to life. The right hands once carried actual spears, and the left hands seem to swing freely in the air. The free left hand of the soldier in the fourth row at far right is the focal point of the picture because it is the only hand with much space around it. The eye goes to that hand, and the picture takes its energy from it, because that is the spot of the most tension. As we compose our images, we must always be aware of where tension is coming from, and do whatever we can to draw the eye to it. In this picture, the line of the trench on the right hand side of the picture and the file of soldiers closet to it, provides the hardest edge in the image. The right hand of that soldier is suspended in the air directly against that edge. That’s why it is the point of maximum tension, and that’s why I organized this picture as I did.