The Foreign Service Journal, May 2022

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | MAY 2022 37 “Desert Conversation.” In In-Gall, a town in the Agadez region of Niger, Tuareg nomads parade camels at the Cure Salé, an annual gathering. CHARLESO.CECIL I could not get 35 mm color slide film developed there, and I didn’t want to risk X-ray damage while sending film back to the States in the pouch for development. To solve the problem, I bought a digital camera, along with lots of memory cards, and never looked back. I have not exposed a piece of film since. b When I returned to the United States in July 2007, I decided it was time to commit myself to this new career full time. By 2010 I had earned enough publication credits to be accepted as a mem- ber of the Society of American Travel Writers and met the mem- bership requirements for joining the American Society of Media Photographers. In 2012 I was named a “Best of 2012” ASMP photographer for documenting daily life in two Islamic madrasas in northern India. In subsequent years, I won awards from SATW for portfolios of images of Bali, Bhutan and Singapore. I currently BEX in re-employed annuitant status, and traveled overseas at my own expense when I could. Then in late 2006 I benefited from a sudden, unexpected opportunity when the chargé d’affaires at our newly opened embassy in Tripoli fell ill and had to leave the post. The depart- ment needed someone to fill in while our first ambassador went through the process of obtaining agrément and Senate approval. I agreed to go to Tripoli in November and wound up staying eight months. It was a fantastic opportunity to observe Libya under Muammar Qadhafi’s ironfisted rule and to revive my reporting and management skills. Geologists speak of the cataclysmic event—the earthquake, the 1,000-year flood—that changes the face of the earth far more than the daily erosion of grains of sand carried away by streams, or the wind, or the waves of the sea. The defining event in my long involvement with photography occurred in Tripoli. I knew