What do I look for when I photograph a story? I look at a man’s hands. And a child’s shoes, if she has any. Their hands and shoes will tell you what even they have never yet dared to say.

You have to find the words no one is saying. There’s a lot of noise and shouting: politicians and celebrities, press conferences and protests, grand openings and new products, preachers and traveling carnivals – not to mention bombs and earthquakes. But the quiet are quiet with their words – words that come ever so slowly, if at all. They’re not speaking to anyone because they don’t even know that they have anything to say.

Find the quiet person. And find a way to listen to his life. But be warned, this way will not give you quick answers, and it will require something from you too. You must be patient and have dinner and sit for a while. Because the quiet man has not yet learned what he is expected to say, he may say nothing. He may tell you about his wedding day forty years ago, or about the day his father died and he felt completely alone in the world. He may tell you his feet hurt and his hands ache. You will be tempted to overlook these things. Don’t overlook them because they will tell you who he is. And in him you will begin to see his nation.

Take this photograph of the hands of the old cowboy of Arambala in the northeast mountains. Look at what the earth has written on his body. He is a book that, if you take the time, you can read. It will be the story of his life. And because he is Salvadoran, it will be a book about El Salvador. Maybe not the whole story, but the essence.

There are things you will be tempted to avoid in your story – embarrassing things or horrible things. Some people believe the poor are embarrassing and want to avoid showing them. Others exploit the poor, using them as mere illustrations, or worse, to make a statement about their own indignation. We should not shy away from the truth, but we should also not indulge our indignation. As a general rule I find it’s better to withhold images that unnecessarily hurt people. But some hard things must be shown. You must not shy away from showing dirt roads and poverty, but don’t fall into the activist’s trap of hiding people’s smiles.

Not only is dignity evident in dirty fingernails, so is kindness. Things close to the earth express the earth’s patience. One thing, personally, that has surprised me in El Salvador has been people’s patience.

After the horrors, the visits to the killing sites and the prisons, the young journalist traveling with me seemed to lose her words. We were walking toward our truck after an exhausting day in the prisons and I wanted to say, “I cannot tell you I know what I am talking about, but I can tell you what I know.”

I know the hands and shoes are the language. I know that when I stood before the killing tree I internalized the pain. But I also know that I too often thrill to the hunt. I know I take a terrible pride in every time I have been shot at – as if a bullet missing me has somehow made me brave. I know the world is full of pain. But the air we breathe isn’t painful – it is a wonder.

Before the young journalist departed, I took her to the remote island of fishermen and cashew farmers, Tasajera. I wanted her to meet the little girl Luna. I met Luna during my first expedition when her mother brought her into the government clinic at midnight. Luna was suffering a dangerous asthma attack. I was there investigating the veracity of the government’s social projects, such as this remote clinic. And because my method is to simply move in and wait, I was there at that clinic the night when Luna arrived.

Social projects quickly receded from view as my reporting turned to the government’s war on gangs, but over the course of a year I kept returning to the island to see my friend David, the fisherman, and Luna and her family. Over time, I recorded a deep picture of Luna’s life: at school, playing princess, and with her father at the wild, remote beach. This island is a wild place and the beach is not a beach for beachcombers; it is the edge of the earth, difficult to reach because no houses exist on the ocean side of the island – the weather is too difficult. One side of the island is dark and quiet against a channel of black water and mangroves. The other side is the moon. And Luna loves it, though she only gets to go with her father when he has time.

On this visit we climbed in David’s boat with Luna and her family and putt-putted our way around the island channel, through the mysterious mangroves, to the remote end of the island, where the waves break over a spit of sand.

When we landed it was Luna, barefoot and in her Disney princess dress, who first leapt from the bow of the boat onto the spit and up to the beachhead and the sea. She ran and flailed like a maniac, flinging black volcanic sand, shouting songs at the sky as if none of us were there and she was communicating with something bigger than us all. Her wonder became my wonder. And I saw that the young journalist, too, was moved by the spectacle of a little girl who appeared to choreograph the sea.

When we were back in the boat and had been quiet a while, the young journalist turned and asked me, low and discreet, “I appreciate that you brought me here, but what does Luna have to do with the story of El Salvador?”

Her question stung me, and I felt a little silly because I didn’t have a ready answer. But then I knew the answer: Luna is like the sand. She is like the sea and the mangroves with their aquatic roots holding black, sun-drenched branches. She is the waters of the ocean. She is a black stone uncovered by a smashing wave. These are things without opinions, ideas, or judgments. There are no headlines in the trees. Among the pelicans there is no war. Luna collects the warmth of a daylight star; sea salt decorates her skin. Like a stone in the sun, Luna does not judge, nor fear the day’s end.

Luna is El Salvador without guile. Luna is what El Salvador would be without politics and business interests and all the things we falsely label “progress.” Luna is not an illustration; she is the reality. If you want to know what El Salvador could become, you only need to look at what Luna is.

We were silent in the deafening wind. I lifted my camera and shot a frame of Luna in the prow with one hand holding her body against the wood and one hand on an anchor. And I thought how alike Luna and that old anchor are – fastened to the roots of things down deep where no one can see.