Language of Looking

Please scroll to the bottom for the unseen portrait of the week. 

 There are many ways to describe the ways that people look at each other and the world.  We peek, stare, glance, gaze, gape, glare, and peer.  We also examine, contemplate, squint, and observe.

 

 

Jodhpur, India

 

 

 

Yangon, Myanmar/Burma

 

 

Berlin, Germany

 

 

The question is not what you look at, but what you see. 
 - Henry David Thoreau 

 

 

Croatia

 

 

 

Kabul, Afghanistan

 

 

 

 Afghanistan

 

 

 

Kabul, Afghanistan

 

 

 

Thirumullaivayil, India

 

 

One of the most wonderful things in nature is a glance of the eye; it transcends speech; it is the bodily
symbol of identity. 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson 

 

 

Train to Peshawar, Pakistan

 

 

Myanmar/Burma

 

 

 Paraguay

 

 

Barkhor Quarter, Lhasa, Tibet

 

 

It’s the way to educate your eyes.  Stare, pry, listen, eavesdrop.  Die knowing something.  You are not here long.
 - Walker Evans  

 

 

Reina Sofia, National Museum of Art, Madrid, Spain

 

 

If you look at a thing 999 times, you are perfectly safe; if you look at it for the 1000th time,
you are in danger of seeing it for the first time.
-  G. K. Chesterton 

 

 

Jaipur, India

 

I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered I didn’t need to.
If the thing is there, why, there it is.
- Walker Evans

 

 

A man examines photographs of victims of the Khmer Rouge’s S-21 prison camp, Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

 

 

 Unseen Portrait of the WeekBaluchistan, Pakistan

The Eye of the Beholder

 

 The Taj Mahal in Agra, India, and the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, are two of the world’s most iconic buildings.   They both evoke passionate emotions, even love, despite being  on opposite ends of the historical and architectural spectrum. 

 

 

Taj Mahal, Agra, India
Built with translucent white marble and inlaid with gems from China, Tibet, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and the Arabian peninsula

 

 In both buildings shape, size, scale, proportion, texture, color, and light  work together to spectacular effect, but very simple structures can also be designed to bring aesthetic pleasure.

 

 

Guggenheim, Bilbao, Spain
Constructed with a steel frame covered with titanium sheathing

 

What makes things pleasing to our eyes, and how can the design of everything from majestic buildings to simple utilitarian structures bring delight?

 

 

Kyoto, Japan

 

For centuries, there has been documented evidence that people have preferences for structures in the built environment and in the natural environment that have certain geometric  proportions known as the golden ratio or golden proportion. 

 

 

Red Fort, New Delhi, India

  

  The ratio of length to width of approximately 1.618  appears not only in art and architecture, but also in natural structures.

 

 

Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet

 

 

 

 

Junagarh Fort, Bikaner, Rajasthan, India

 

 

 

Step Well, India

 

 

Kimberly Elam’s book,  Geometry of Design: Studies in Proportion and Composition, points out that things in nature as different as
the human body, the pine cone, and the trout all share natural proportioning systems that provide the foundation for all art, architecture, and design.

 

 

Summer Palace, Beijing, China

 

 

Art is the imposing of a pattern on experience, and our aesthetic enjoyment is

recognition of the pattern. 
 - Alfred North Whitehead, Mathemetician

 

 

Jodhpur, India

 

  

Gujarat, India

 

 

 Jaipur, India, 2008

 

 

 On photography and geometry:

“For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry.” 
- Henri Cartier-Bresson

 

 

“Let no one destitute of geometry enter my doors.”  -  Plato 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Family, Nature’s Masterpiece

Tagong, Tibet

Families return to Herat, Afghanistan

Burma/Myanmar

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”
-Jane Howard

Viet Tri City, Vietnam

Tihamah Plain, Yemen

“The family is one of nature’s masterpieces.” - George Santayana

Honduras

Jodhpur, India

Shanghai, China

Maimana, Afghanistan

Tiguent, Mauritania

Macedonia

Cambodian refugees in Thailand

Porbandar, Gujarat

“The family is the nucleus of civilization.” -  William Durant

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