In high school, I went on a number of service trips in Mexico where we built houses for lower-income families. In 2004, our campsite was on a plateau that had a sharp cliff dropout overlooking the valley below.
As can be expected, much of this region is pretty desolate in terms of vegetation, and the photograph makes that pretty obvious. Most of this land is undeveloped and unmaintained.
I like “Looking out” a lot because of the formation of my three friends. I like that they are in height order, and I think that the composition of this photograph details quite a bit my blossoming photograph skills.
With “Luis”: this is Luis. We built a house for his family. Every morning he would get up early to put on his best clothes and greet us as we arrived to start that day’s building. He was also always the last person to say good-bye. I know that this photograph isn’t the best quality (it was scanned onto the computer, for starters), and I took it a long time ago, but there’s something about it – about Luis’ gaze at us as we pulled away for the last time and something about the curves and conditions of his neighborhood. I think that I like it because it is so candid and so honest.
He just stood there smiling. I’ll never forget those moments.