She is part of a team of young girls working on a road repair gang. I photographed her while she rested, incongruously wearing a Laotian version of a LA Dodger baseball cap. She had been shoveling loads of stones. Several hours later, she was still at it. The work is hard, the pay low, but she has a job.

This image was originally a color image. You can see it reproduced in color in my travel article on my Laos trip at: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139137/photo50.html

When comparing the two images, you will see a striking difference in meaning. The color version is more of a travel image. This black and white version is more of a journalistic or documentary photo. While she is in the shade, there are golden highlights created by the warm afternoon light coming through the trees in the color version. They are gone in this black and white rendition. This more abstract monochromatic image also downplays the emphasis on the colorful skirt she wears in the color version. She seems to be a kid at rest on a rock pile in the color photograph, while in this black and white image she becomes a symbol of child labor in a developing country. While somewhat less real in form, the picture becomes a more universal expression of a social issue when the colors are removed and only the rocks and the young worker remain.