Lots of people have photos like this one in their collections of travel photos. If I hadn't been there, standing behind M. as he took it, maybe I wouldn't like it as much as I do. I'd probably think it was another boring travel photo. But because I was there I remember the heat and the smells and how excited these kids were to have their photo taken.

Kids are easy to photograph. They still find you, the tourist, interesting, while their parents are tired of you and tired of posing for photos they'll never see. Our friend told us that these kids, in the tiny Cambodian village we were staying in, have never seen a photo of themselves. It's odd to consider that, when you think about how often we in the West are photographed, knowingly or otherwise.

I like this picture because of the way the kids are staring back at M. with such fascination. When we arrived, the kids and us spent half an hour, maybe more, just staring at each other. They worked in shifts- some would wander off and some others would arrive, to take their place. We remained in place, staring at each batch of new kids in turn.

M. took dozens of shots of them. The little boy in the front managed to get into every single one. When we got them developed it became like "Where's Wally?" and every time we thought we'd found a photo that he wasn't in, we'd suddenly realise he was there afterall, right in the corner, or at the bottom.

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