It was a week and a half ago that I returned home from a trip to Oregon where I spent four days photographing appearances by the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet.
Life moves on, and, even as amazing and profound as the Dalai Lama’s lectures were for the thousands in attendance -- and certainly for me personally -- the days do pass and things change. This week I flew to the Midwest to spend several days visiting my mom; and today I’m back at my home near Puget Sound, packing photo gear and charging camera and strobe batteries in preparation for a wedding I’m shooting this evening.
Yes, life does move on. I have new photographs I’ve made in the days since my Dalai Lama experience, and those images are sized and sitting on my computer desktop, ready to post here. But before I can file Dalai Lama pictures in my archive or mentally consider the Dalai Lama experiences to be "memories," there are a number of images from the Oregon trip that simply need to be shared. The newer stuff will just have to wait its turn.
Here are the backstories of what I want to share with you today:
There is the image above of His Holiness, waving to a crowd of Tibetans who had gathered to hear him speak in Portland. The backdrop of the picture is a mural of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, where the Dalai Lama lived until 1959 when the Chinese army invaded Tibet and His Holiness fled to India.
And there are photos, below, of some of the faces I saw in the crowds -- Tibetans who waited in lines for hours and hours to pass through security checkpoints to enter venues where the Dalai Lama would speak. The US State Department’s security measures are tight for a visit here by the Dalai Lama, whose life has been threatened (odd and perverse, isn’t it, that there are individuals who would try to do harm to a man whose message is kindness, compassion, and peace?) Children often fell asleep in their parents laps as the elders waited to hear their spiritual leader.
Excitement, joy, reverence, and even fatigue: Those days I followed the Dalai Lama were full, and looking at these pictures makes me smile. I don't use the word lightly when I say that, for me, the experience was "unforgettable."
