IT SEEMED IMPORTANT at the time

So It Seemed

MY MAGPIE EYE is attracted to colorful things that make me do a double-take.

What is that? Or even, what could it be? My best photos are shot from the hip.

A man on a motorcycle in Cambodia, burning down a dirt road at sunset is feeling the glow. Superheroes with Jesus in a mural in Guadalupe, California provide a public service announcement. And, somewhere

in the Nevada desert, there's a turn-off to Beverly Hills.

All of these photographs seemed important—at the time.

Portraits from the Poum

TEN PORTRAITS out of hundreds taken during my service in the Peace Corps (2015-17).

Most of the faces belong to friends or acquaintances in the village where I lived once upon a time in the Kingdom of Wonder, far away now, yet still so vivid.

Rounding up this essay is a portrait of a little

Khmer cowboy. With hemp rope in hand, he ran to keep up with his older brothers to bring the cows home for the evening. When the sunset glow lit him up, I asked for the picture and he obligingly turned his solemn face toward the sun.