I always look for the light first, and then the subject. In this case, it was the diagonal slash of late afternoon light falling on the side of a boat moored on the Mekong River in the Mekong Delta town of Long Xuyen. That diagonal pulled my eye to the scene, just as I knew it would pull my viewers into and through my image. It was only after I made the image and magnified on it on my LCD screen that I saw the tiny hand on the wooden slat and the two children looking back at me from inside the boat. I instantly lowered the camera to shoot again. The lovely light remained, but the children had already left the windows. This image reminds us of how childhood sometimes feels – locked away inside while looking out at an incomprehensible world. Not only are the windows barred with wooden planks – the diagonal bar of light acts as both another barrier as well as a symbol of the outside world that awaits them.