More Fun and Games

Wodaabe Tribe, Niger

Laughter is by definition healthy.
- Doris Lessing,  Nobel Laureate in Literature

La Fortuna, Honduras

Shanghai Circus, Shanghai, China 

Moscow, Russia 

Perugia, Italy

If music be the food of love, play on.
- William Shakespeare

Havana, Cuba

India

Rajasthan, India

Lucknow, India

No human being is innocent, but there is a class of innocent human actions called games.
- W. H. Auden

Bekaa Valley, Lebanon

Mersin, Turkey 

Could we look into the head of a Chess player,
we should see there a whole world of feelings,
images, ideas, emotion and passion.
- Alfred Binet

Jodhpur, India

Peru

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Some people believe football is a matter of
life and death.
I’m very disappointed with that attitude.
I can assure you it is much, much more important than that.
- Bill Shankly, English soccer manager.

Maningrida, Australia

Tibet

Young Shepherd during Holi, Rajasthan, India

We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.
- Immanual Kant

Istanbul, Turkey

Until one has loved an animal,
a part of one’s soul remains unawakened.
- Anatole France

Mumbai/Bombay, India

 

Buzkashi, Kabul, Afghanistan

Yangon, Myanmar/Burma

They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them.
Golf is more complicated than that.
- Gardner Dickinson

Bangladesh

 

Yemen

 

You must invent your own games and
teach us old ones how to play.
- Nikki Giovanni

Burma/Myanmar

Varanasi, India

Lost in Thought

 

 

Bagan, Burma/Myanmar

 

 

 

 

 A man is not idle because he is absorbed in thought.  There is a visible labor and there is an invisible labor. 
- Victor Hugo

 

  

 

 

 

 Angkor Wat, Cambodia

 

 

 

 Never be afraid to sit a while and think. 
- Lorraine Hansberry,  A Raisin in the Sun

 

 

 

 

 Varanasi, India

 

 

 

 

 

Afghanistan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  Cambodia

 

 

 

 

 Iron rusts from disuse, stagnant water loses its purity and in cold weather becomes frozen;

even so does inaction sap the vigor of the mind. 
-Leonardo da Vinci, Notebooks, 1508

 

 

 

 

Canada 

 

 

 

 

New York City 

 

 

 

 

 

South Korea 

 

 

 

 

 

Uzbekistan 

 

 

 

 

 

United States

 

 

 

 

China

 

 

 

 

Honduras

 

 

 

 

Ahmed Shah Massoud, Kabul, Afghanistan

 

 

 

 

 

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

 

 

 

No problem can withstand the assault of sustained thinking. 
- Voltaire

 

 

 

 

  Angkor Wat, Cambodia

 

 

 

 

 

Jammu & Kashmir 

 

 

 

 

Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain
Guernica and the Evolution of Consciousness, Picasso

 

 

Grand Canyon, Arizona, United States

 

Did you ever stop to think, and forget to start again? 
Winnie the Pooh,  A.A. Milne

Family Love: Oil, Cement, Music

“In family life, love is the oil that eases friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony.” - Eva Burrows

Macedonia

Mizoram, India

Kham, Tibet

“All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
- Leo Tolstoy

Yanesha, Peru

Yanesha, Peru

“Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people who belong to us, we see the past, present and future. We make discoveries about ourselves.” -Gail Lumet Buckley

Northern Pakistan

La Fortuna, Honduras

Croatia

Thailand

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Bamiyan, Afghanistan

Los Angeles, California

Los Angeles, California

“There’s no vocabulary for love within a family, love that’s lived in but not looked at, love within the light of which all else is seen, the love within which all other love finds speech. This love is silent.” - T. S. Eliot

Cambodia

Tibet

“If you look deeply into the palm of your hand, you will see your parents and all generations of your ancestors. All of them are alive in this moment. Each is present in your body. You are the continuation of each of these people.”
- Thich Nhat Hanh

Solitude – The Power of One

Barkhor Quarter,  Lhasa, Tibet

Religious figures from Moses to  Jesus, Mohammed and the Buddha all found great value in solitude.

Old Kabul, Afghanistan

In this wired age of non-stop communication with little time for reflection and contemplation, many find it vital to carve out time in order to have time to be creative, innovative, and  imaginative.

Grand Canyon, Arizona, U.S.

Octavio Paz Mexican writer, poet, and winner of the Nobel Prize for literature said  “Solitude is the profoundest fact of the human condition.”

Angkor Wat, Cambodia

Himalayan India

Howrah Station, Calcutta, India

Brazil

“I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers.”

- Henry David Thoreau, Walden

Moscow, Russia

Dal Lake, Vale of Kashmir

“A man can be himself only so long as he is alone;  if he does not love solitude, he will not love freedom; for it is only when he is alone that he is really free. ”  -  Arthur Schopenhauer

My pictures on people reading around the world will be featured at the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 5.

Unseen, Unpublished Redux

Over the years I have shot close to a million pictures.  Many of them have been published in my books, in magazines, and seen in my exhibitions and on my website. Most have never been seen.  Here are a few of those pictures.

Cambodia, Angkor Wat, 1999

 

Tibet, 2008

 

Tibet, 2001

 

Violinist in an outdoor market, Morocco,1988

 

Morocco, 1988

 

Nomad, Kham, Tibet, 2004

 

Jodhpur, India, 1996

 

Kashmir, 1998

 

Yemen, 1997

 

Tibet, 2001

Children at Play

Tanks become toys in Kandahar, Afghanistan, 1994

No matter how dire the situation, how dangerous the environment, children need to play.

Children play on an anti-aircraft gun near Beirut, Lebanon, 1982

Whether it is splashing in puddles or climbing on abandoned tanks, their world of make believe is almost as important as food and shelter.

Boys playing football in flooded pastures, Bangladesh, 1983

“Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.” - Heraclitus

Children play next to an abandoned freighter, Sitwe, Myanmar (Burma), 1995

Two children play a game by a road, India, 1993

Young Cambodian boys play in the ruins of Preah Khan near Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 1999

Young monks at play, Burma, 1994

Yemen, 1997

“Child’s play is the exultation of the possible.” – M. Buber

The Path to Buddha

I am often asked about which countries I enjoy photographing the most.  That’s very hard to answer, but I do enjoy going back again and again to Buddhist countries, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Bhutan, Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Burma.

Buddha statue in Mandalay, Burma, 2008

Monk at the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet, 2000

The ethics and the aesthetics of Buddhism are melded in a unique way. The vivid color of robes and sacred places contrast with the monochromatic tradition I grew up with.

Young monks play with computer games in Sera Monastery in Bylakuppe, India, 2001

Every time I have visited a Buddhist monastery, I have seen a playfulness among the monks, a joy in the way they conduct themselves and the way they interact with each other.

Young nun, Rangoon, Burma, 1994

Monks in the Rain, Angkor Wat, Cambodia, 1999

A monk studies Buddhist scripture in the late afternoon at a monastery in Aranyaprathet, Thailand, 1996

As I photographed the picture of the monk and the cat in a monastery in Thailand, it occured to me that all the qualities that I observed – contemplation, serenity, meditation – are ones that are antithetical to the hard-charging, ladder-climbing Western culture.

Young monks study Buddhist scripture at a monastery in Litang, Kham, Tibet, 1999

Pilgrim praying at the Buddhist academy of Larung Gar, near Serthar, Kham, Tibet, 2001

The Monks have a way of taking something we could consider mundane, and transform it into something sacred.

Candles are a form of offering at the Tibetan Prayer Festival, during which thousands are lit under the Bodi tree. Bodh Gaya, India, 2000

Monasteries have always been places of refuge for people and animals who have no other place to go.  Monks will share whatever they have, no matter how small.

Woman meditates in Bagan monastery, Burma, 2008

Even though they get merits for helping people in need, one never has the impression that they do it for any other reason other than their good nature, dedication, and hospitality.

Quotations from the Buddha:

“Teach this triple truth to all:  A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.”

“Just as a candle cannot burn without fire, men cannot live without a spiritual life.”

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”