I suppose it was bound to happen eventually. It’s been nine years--468 weeks--since I resigned my longtime job as a newspaper photographer. Finally, this week, I had a moment when I missed my old life, when I thought (ever so briefly) that a press pass would be a good thing to have.His Holiness The Dalai Lama was in Seattle. The spiritual and political leader of Tibet, the Dalai Lama was here in the Northwest for five days of events organized around the theme of “Compassion.” I would have dearly loved to photograph the Dalai Lama. On the trip that Leah and I did this past fall in Nepal, we encountered a few Tibetan traders in the high Himalayan village of Namche Bazaar (that area of Nepal is but a short distance away from the border with China and Tibet.) The Tibetans were a beautiful, exotic-looking people. I’d like to know more about China and Tibet. Those places are high on my list for future travel and discovery.
I attended one of the Dalai Lama’s Seattle appearances. It felt weird to be sitting in the crowd, in the arena where over the years I have covered--up-close-and-personal-- hundreds of Seattle Sonics basketball games. My place now is among “civilians” rather than in a press area. From where I sat in the arena this week, far-removed from the stage, the Dalai Lama was a tiny speck of a man. I used my pocket snapshot camera to shoot an I-Was-There picture of the Dalai Lama when he appeared on the big TV screen that hangs in the center of the arena. Ironically, my former news photographer colleagues were even farther away from the Dalai Lama than I was. They were using 600mm lenses to shoot their “up close” pictures.
Seeing where the press was, I let go of my Press Pass Envy. Any photographer will tell you: A 600mm lens will never be the best way to get close to humanity.
