The rice farmers we saw in Southern Laos were all women. They worked long hours under a blazing sun, hacking and cutting -- backbreaking labor, work essential for survival. This group stopped working for a few moments to talk to us about their lives and problems. All were married with numerous children. Medical care and education were minimal. Their prospects for a better life are grim. To best tell their story, I chose to use my very small Canon G6 with its 24mm wideangle conversion lens, and placed it on the ground amidst the rice within a few feet of the woman at right. Because it has a flip up viewfinder, I did not have to lie face down in the dirt to frame my picture. I simply looked down into the viewfinder. The woman in the foreground, who is listening to the tales told by the woman in the middle ground, is my anchor layer. Her face is abstracted in silhouette. Her rusty rice cutting machete in hand, she could be all of us. The focal point of this image is the woman in the middle ground. Her face is turned to eloquently catch the light, a study in vulnerability. The third woman becomes the background layer. Notice how the heads diminish in size from layer to layer. All of these women are within six feet of my lens, yet each becomes a separate figure, receding in scale and lending the illusion of depth to the image. All of this is the result of my very low and very close vantage point using the 24mm wideangle lens.