My first newspaper photography job was in Lorain, Ohio, a city with a vibrant population of immigrants from countries like Hungary and Czechoslovakia, Mexico and Puerto Rico. The immigrants had moved to Lorain for good jobs that were to be found in the local US Steel and Ford Motors plants (if ever there was a city that visually epitomized the Rust Belt, Lorain was it.)
The immigrants made homes in Lorain and surrounding communities and put down roots as US citizens, but they also celebrated the cultural traditions of their ancestors. Each summer Lorain held an International Festival, and my photographer colleagues and I would cover the partying and carrying-on -- we’d shoot the spinning, whirling spectacle of Greek dancers, for example. We’d also buy baklava and stuff it into our camera bags so that, come winter, we’d be off on entirely different kinds of assignments -- photographing snow storms, let’s say -- and we’d pull lenses sticky from baklava from our bags and remember, fondly, the past summer’s sweet excesses.
So I felt right at home this past weekend -- 30-some years after my first rookie photojournalist days in Ohio -- as I took pictures of my friends from the Seattle-area Tibetan/American community. The Tibetans celebrated their 15th annual Tibet Fest near the Space Needle at Seattle Center. They danced, sang, and ate momos (a dumpling kind of a dish) drenched in five-alarm Tibetan hot sauce.
Like most cultural celebrations of this kind, much of the emphasis of Tibet Fest was on the youth: Elders wanting their children and grandchildren to have connections with their cultural history. I spent both Saturday and Sunday with my friends, two very full and amazing days. Finally, with prayer flags fluttering overhead Sunday evening, Tibetan Buddhist monks offered closing prayers for peace and good fortune for all beings.
Friends gave me Tibetan cookies, some of which I stuffed into my camera bag. Months from now, during the dark and rainy Seattle winter, it’ll be fun to find cookie crumbs on my lenses.
