This slide sends chills down my spine and brings tears to my eyes.
My mom took this photo in 1965 at the Royal Palace in Cambodia. It looks like any other summer day in Phnom Penh. And it probably was. But 10 short years later, that would all change.
The local men and women in this photo would be labeled capitalist roaders and either sent to labor camps in the countryside, murdered, or both. Foreigners would stop visiting Cambodia. The economy would crumble. And half the population would perish.
In 1991 I shot a photo similar to this one. The Palace looked pretty much the same, but the grounds were empty.
Sometimes I wish I could take a photo like my mom’s and freeze time. We could go back and right the wrongs (starting when the US bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam war) and save half the population of a peaceful and innocent country.
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