The Challenges of Iwo Jima

Despite your urges to go see Iwo Jima at night, don't do it unless you go early in the morning.  The tour buses parading around the loop, dropping off throngs of senior citizens, disinterested high school students, and folks from the world around make it nearly impossible to get to the grounds, take a clean photo, and get out. Just below the frame of this photo are probably a couple of hundred students looking at everything around them except for the monument that not only honors the achievement at Iwo Jima, but also the Marine Corps in general.  But their annoying presence forced me to take a photo that doesn't look like every other Iwo Jima image that comes up on a Google search.

Taken with a Canon Rebel XS with the stock lens, this photo could not have been pulled off without those annoying teens who brought to mind the words of the snooty Maitre D' in Ferris Bueller's Day Off: "I weep for the future."