Friday, November 09, 2007

Iconic photo

I was talking yesterday about that elusive photograph of a lone boy sat on a water buffalo and it brought to mind one of the iconic images that I've always associated with Cambodia. The Killing Fields movie will always be a watershed in my life. When I saw it in the mid-80s, it gave me a window into the recent history of Cambodia and vividly brought home to me, as films very occasionally do, the human tragedy that took place at the end of the previous decade. It spurred me on to find out more about this incredible country and just over twenty years later, I'm now living here. The photo of the boy on the buffalo was reproduced on the cover of the book, The Killing Fields by Christopher Hudson - published by Pan Books in 1984 - and stuck with me. The photo I'm looking for in my mind's eye is of a smiling boy, astride a water buffalo, in the middle of green paddy fields with a gorgeous orange sunset behind him, and an Angkorean temple creeping into the edge of shot. I know that I haven't got a cat-in-hell's chance of getting the photo, but I'll keep looking!

Link: For more on The Killing Fields movie, click here.

No comments: