I made this portrait of Sucre’s Archbishop Juarez Parraga from a distance, using a 345mm telephoto focal length. I then cropped the image to intensify the emotions within it, creating an interpretation that speaks of both solemnity and thought. The archbishop was presiding over a Sunday mass in Sucre’s cathedral. At the moment, he is symbolically expressing concentration by pressing two fingers to his face. The archbishop’s altar servers stand behind him. One of them appears here as only a shoulder, while the other, his face a mask of solemnity, bears the Archbishop’s staff, called a “crosier.” A softly focused cross in the distance repeats the vertical thrusts of both the crosier and the Archbishop’s miter, while adding religious context.