Women carrying huge baskets of wood walk the hills of Southern Laos at dawn. Once again, the color and black and white versions of this image have different stories to tell.
(You can see the image reproduced in color in my travel article on my Laos trip at: http://www.worldisround.com/articles/139137/photo76.html )

This black and white conversion removes the warm early morning light that made the color image quite attractive. We see what the scene would have looked like if we had seen it with our own eyes. It is no longer as attractive an image in black and white. Replacing its natural reality is the harder reality of life itself in this part of the world. People carry these huge baskets of heavy sticks on their back in order to survive. This is what they will cook their food with, and they must find it and walk many miles with it strapped to their backs. Once again, a travel image becomes an example of travel photojournalism, expressing its idea in a different form and for a different purpose.