Seeing Tradition

One evening nearly every month members of the Tibetan community in Seattle gather in their Buddhist monastery,  and, in the language of their homeland, recite prayers for world peace, for good health for their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and for their countrymen still living in Tibet.

The Tibetan community here is vibrant, and, in addition to monthly prayers, there are other kinds of cultural events as well.  A week from now, for example, there will be a concert of modern Tibetan music.  And there are also observances of Tibetan holidays…and of the Dalai Lama's birthday…and traditional ceremonies  to celebrate marriages, or to mourn a death.

The prayers, however, strike me as a kind of centerpiece for the community.  In the eight years now that I have been photographically documenting Tibetan culture in the Pacific Northwest, I have only missed monthly prayers a very few times. 

The prayers are low-key and quiet, admittedly not even a blip on the radar of all that goes on in "big city"  Seattle. 

Nevertheless,  I have seen that gatherings like these bind a community together. 

Tibet Fest 2016

I wonder how often we Americans stop to realize how lucky we are: That we can stand on a street corner shouting grievances we might have about our government; that we can freely practice our religion of choice; that we can assemble and march in parades and celebrate American culture…or German or Japanese traditions…or whatever strikes our fancy.

There are, of course, many countries in our world where citizens can do none of the above without fear of being tossed into jail, or worse.  My Tibetan friends tell me that in Tibet they cannot even possess a picture of their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.

I spent Saturday and Sunday photographing Tibet Fest, held for 21 years now a stone's throw from the iconic Space Needle at the Seattle Center. The event is part of Seattle's "Festal" program which celebrates various world cultures that are parts of Seattle's melting pot human makeup.

The event is colorful, and wonderful, and I was proud of Seattle for hosting celebrations like this.

Daddy's back

The fellow responsible for the care and feeding of this blog -- that would of course be me -- has been a poor blog parent of late.  Daddy's attention has been focused, not here,  but on a new Instagram child I've recently adopted.

Until now, I have stubbornly avoided social media -- mostly, I guess, because it felt too much like high school ("LIKE me! PLEASE LIKE me!!!)  I see, however, that a lot of my photographer friends are doing Instagram. And so I bow to peer pressure.

We never completely get over high school, do we?

Anyway, I hafta admit that Instagram is kind of fun to do, though it seems like a one-off photographic forum: I do a hike,  or one of my shoots for the Seattle Tibetan community. I make maybe 500 pictures, but post only one on Instagram. This blog is a place where I think I'll show more backstory.

The images I'm posting here today are from two recent hikes/summit scrambles that my buds and I did in the North Cascades. I invite you to click on the images (particularly the top one, the panorama) to see them at a larger size.

And if you are curious, here is a link to my Instagram baby:

 https://www.instagram.com/kurtphotojournal/

Work it, work it...

When friends and I head into the mountains for a hike or climb, my buds half-jokingly refer to me as "The Expedition Photographer;" and typically I think they expect that I'll shoot photographs like you see above…images one might broadly refer to as "Scenic Beauty," or "Humans in the Wilderness."  I'm generally okay with that kind of categorization, as it offers a lot of creative wiggle-room. Most anything I shoot can fit into those two pigeon holes.

Once we return home, I go through my pictures and email a selection out to members of our group. We always have a great time on our hikes, and the photographs are a kind of after-the-fact celebration of the day we spent together.

On our most recent hike, however, the humans in our party, as well as the amazing wilderness, kind of got upstaged. We hikers had chosen Miller Pk. in the Central Washington Cascades as our ultimate destination for the day, and it took us several hours to get to the top. As we arrived and considered which summit rocks looked like the best spots for eating lunch and taking in the views, we realized we were not alone. A mountain goat wandered up, and, though he kept his distance -- we were happy for that because that fella had BIG, sharp-looking horns -- I swear he saw my camera and started posing.

He stood on this rock, and that. He strutted about in a way that reminded me of a body builder in competition, workin'-it, workin'-it  on stage, showing off his well-trained physique.

I think the goat was pretty full of his fine self, and the wonderful environment where he lived.

It's a good thing goats don't use smartphones, because I have no doubt this fella would be a Selfie-Shootin'-Fool.

Opening Doors

It's been eight years now that I've been photographing the community and culture of the 300-or-so Tibetans who live in the Seattle area.  It is a photographic project for which I can't imagine an "end point."

I feel as if I'm in a dream, walking around with my camera in an ancient and amazing,  treasure-filled palace. Each door I open in the palace leads to a discovery, something  beautiful or new to me, and almost always surprising.

I learned recently that one of my Lama friends at the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Seattle has taken up painting. My friend, Tulku Yeshe Rinpoche,  is already a respected poet and writer and I have read the English translations of a number of his books. His creativity is boundless.

Tulku la's paintings seem, to my eye at least, far beyond what one would expect from a "beginner." He allowed me to photograph him as he worked on a painting of the Potala Palace, for 300 years the home of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa, Tibet.  The current Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in 1959 and lives in exile in India. The Potala palace is now a museum and a World Heritage Site.

As I consider the photographs I'm posting today, I wonder whether Tulku la has the same dream that I have? ... that he, too is walking around in an incredible palace, full of neverending discoveries.

Candlelight

I was in the Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Seattle last night, photographing a candlelight ceremony to honor the passing of the monastery's much-loved head lama, Dagchen Rinpoche.

In my 40-plus years as a photojournalist, the scene I beheld last night was one of the most beautiful things I have witnessed.  Soft voices joined in a sweet, chant-like prayer, and monastery lights were turned down low. The human faces, glowing in that soft candlelight, were simply lovely.

I am often awed by the power that a still photograph has to convey emotion, but in this instance, nothing can match the experience of being there.

Our Friend Minnie

 

This morning I happened to hear a story on NPR where an historian said that when ancient civilizations are discovered and human bones are found, it is not uncommon to also find the bones of dogs. This little factoid indicating how deeply the human/canine bond lives in our DNA really resonated with me because yesterday our dog Minnie, an 18-year-old Australian Shepherd,  died. And though Leah and I knew that 18 is quite old for a dog and could see that Minnie's health was deteriorating and understood that no being lives forever, her absence in our house today is unmistakable.

I spent some time this morning looking through some photographs I have taken of our little four-legged friend over the years.  And though recently she spent her old-girl days camped out near her food bowl, not wanting to miss her next meal, the pictures I found remind me that,  as a youngster, Minnie was a go-getter, an imp, a social being who was usually right there, close by the humans and other creatures who populated her world.

We humans are lucky that dogs allow us to be part of their lives.

Up High

It seems like the mountain adventures I've been doing lately have presented me with circumstances that have resulted in images with a bit of a common thread: Relatively small human figures in an expansive,  high country landscape.

The snow in my Washington state alpine playground is melting fast in this unusually warm spring…and thus, because we enjoy a pristine, white setting,  my friends and I have been doing trips that take us higher and higher. Plans are afoot for an even more ambitious trek in mid-June into the North Cascades. If the weather cooperates and the trip comes off, it could be amazing. Stay tuned.

Until then, here are several images from the past several weeks.

Little Miracles

A female robin decided to build a nest in the wisteria that climbs under the eaves along our front porch.  And thus, for the past couple of weeks,  we have had just the best time watching mama bring twigs and mud to fashion her nursery; we saw her sit and sit for about 10 days; and then we grinned like proud grandparents when we noticed little baby heads peeking out from the nest.

We were careful to give mama and babies their space (the above image was shot with a 600mm lens.) And, on the day that the babies left the nest for the first time, we kept our dogs leashed and made sure no neighborhood cats came near.

As I readied the image of the robin family for this post, another photograph came to mind, something I shot recently as a gift for a young woman, I'd guess in her early 20's,  who just had her first baby.  The woman was a phenomenal runner when she was in high school in the town where I live, and was a Pac 12 star in college. I have kind of hero-worshiped her from afar.

Because a really good runner's feet are -- in my mind at least -- kind of akin to wings, I thought these two images paired together nicely.

Creation and Destruction

A group of Tibetan Buddhist Monks came to the art museum on Bainbridge Island last week to create a sand mandala,  and, as I photographed that process on two different days, it appeared that the monks' visit made quite an impact on my neighbors.

You see, the making of a mandala is an elaborate and fascinating process, usually taking several days… monks patiently and painstakingly funneling grains of sand through metal tubes onto the design, one color of sand,  then another.  The finished mandala is quite beautiful, but it is a work of art created with an unusual twist:

Once finished, the monks will brush away the sand and destroy the mandala, dramatically trying to illustrate the lesson that we human beings too often become attached to things that are not permanent;  or we look for fleeting sources of contentment like wealth or possessions, traveling  dead-end behavioral alleyways where lasting happiness will not be found.

The monks spent five days making the mandala; and, on the last day, a group of about 50 museum visitors gathered around the mandala as one of the monks explained the lesson behind the mandala's creation and destruction.  Initially the visitors chatted among themselves, talking about what a nice day it was outside, and about where they'd go for lunch,  paying (it seemed to me) only cursory attention to what the monk was saying.

Slowly, however, the visitors began to listen.

In the end, as the monks brushed away the grains of sand, the crowd was silent.