Photographic memory.

A few months ago, the photographer Paul Conklin called to check in about an assignment, Conklin, who has contributed more photo stories to U.S. CATHOLIC than any other photographer, was getting ready to wrap up the photos and writing for his story on a project in the Mexican border city of Juarez. After he had filled me in on his trip to Juarez, he also let me know that his cancer had recurred.

Conklin's "The View from Juarez" (which appeared in our August issue) turned out to be his last assignment. He died September 17. Over his almost four decades of association with this magazine, Paul worked with about a dozen different editors. All of us remember his warm and gentle voice at the other end of the phone line, his indefatigable adventurous spirit, his generous big heart, his passion for justice, and his sense of humor. Particularly in his work for U.S. CATHOLIC, Paul used his camera to bring people up close both with the "least of these" at home and abroad and with the unsung heroes and good Samaritans who make a difference in the struggles for peace, justice, and human dignity.

Paul never talked about his work for his big-name clients--Time magazine, National Geographic, and the New York Times. In fact, it wasn't until I read the New York Times obituary a couple of days after his death that I learned he had shot that world-famous photo of the Vietnam-war protester placing carnations in the rifles of military police.

Paul was the most veteran and most prominent among the talented photographers whose work has graced our pages over the years--Ed Lettau, Martin Lueders, Mev Puleo, Lloyd DeGrane, Antonio Perez, Lucinda Devlin, Joseph Rodriguez, Mimi Forsyth, David Kamba, and several others, Like Paul, a number of them generously agreed to work for our modest nonprofit rates even though they can command much higher remuneration from other clients. We are deeply indebted to all of them for employing their talents in the service of this publishing ministry. The impact of their photography is indeed powerful; the Chinese have it right when they say, "Seeing something once is better than hearing it a hundred times."

A few years ago, Paul wrote a note to U.S. CATHOLIC's former managing editor Sue Fox McGovern, telling her that his photos were the program of the local photo dub in his adopted hometown of Port Townsend, Washington. "I will show them a lot of old black-and-white prints from my checkered past. It will be my first, and last, retrospective. When we look at old pictures, we're recapturing a fragment of the past--it's not something that happens to insurance salesmen or cobblers or ditch diggers." We hope Paul won't mind that we added one more Paul Conklin retrospective. As you turn to pages 34-37, please say a prayer for Paul and his family.