Landscapegoats

Vote, dammit
Kathmandu

Well, only one person voted on the ICONS category of photos (thanks Brother Martin). I guess my photoblogs are getting boring.

This is what it looks like when you 're actually getting important things done and deadlines met....boring. I dislike doing it for the same reason I always hated going to bed on time - there's always something more interesting to do....so I just kind of go till I fall over, like a little kid.

After I finally fall over, I'm too tired or sick to do anything exciting. It's only then that administrative things finally get taken care of.

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Mustard flowers in bloom outside Panauti, Kathmandu Valley 2005

The next category is Landscapes. Admittedly mine is not a landscape camera. But I think I did all right with these 'uns. ....

Along the Indus River, Choglamsar Ladakh. 2007

In Nubra valley near the Hunder sand dunes, Ladakh. 2007

Okay, just one more Ladakh photo....maybe someday if I get sick enough (!) I will have to move to Nubra Valley and write a book.


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Experimental

I always really liked Teilhard de Chardin, the French mystic. This quote came to me today via Rob Brezsny. ----- By means of all created things, without exception, the divine assails us, penetrates us, and molds us. We imagined it as distant and inaccessible, whereas in fact we live steeped in its burning layers . . . This palpable world, which we are used to treating with the boredom and disrespect with which we habitually regard places with no sacred association, is a holy place." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, *The Divine Milieu* "Let the body think of the spirit as streaming, pouring, rushing and shining into it from all aides." -Plotinus ----This is an experiment - I'm trying out blogging directly from Email.

Icons

Yet another in a series of photo blogs, designed to force you to vote on which pictures I should submit to the photo competition.

This time the category is Icons.



Inner sanctum at Mahabodhi temple, Bodh Gaya India. 2007
Karumariamman temple, Bangalore. 2003Each lotus represents a footstep of the Buddha. The Mahabodhi temple Chankamana (meditation walk), Bodh Gaya 2007.
Astamatrika Bhairab mask waits to be "awakened." Patan, Nepal 2006.
Vintage colour print of the Dalai Lama, Swaymabhunath, Nepal. 2006


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Local friends

Another photo blog....
Kathmandu


Thanks to Ashini and John for comments on the photo entries. I can't really "see" these photos anymore, they're part of my brain now....;-)
Burmese monks visiting Bodh Gaya, Bihar. 2007

Another category in the competition is Local Friends. In addition to all the Smiling Peasantry I posted a few days ago, I would probably enter some of these.

Somebody help me weed out this glut of imagery....Tibetan folk dancers waiting for the Dalai Lama, Dharamsala, India 2007.

If it's Monday, this must be Shiva: this kid dressed as Shiva every Monday and Ram every Thursday. Koregaon Park, Pune 2005This woman in Pune's Shaniwar Wada had to get her husband's permission before being photographed. 2005


I offered to buy the flowers for this striking little Telugu girl, just to get this photo. Vijayawada. 2006. Too bad about the mobile phone sign, they're everywhere in India now....Ladakhi Muslim schoolgirls waiting for the bus, Nubra Valley 2007. Possible upper-right quadrant crop?

Marigolds for sale in Ason Tole at Dasain time, Kathmandu - 2006.
Amma Garu who ran the idly hotel in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh. 2006, and her granddaughter.
Krishnakumari was all ready waiting for the school bus one morning. Her mother had just drawn this muggu. Brodipet, Guntur AP 2006.

Gurung woman selling cilantra and turmeric, Kathmandu. 2007
This is a fun shot, but not sure it could win a competition. Marathi men in traditional dress, Bombay, 2005


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Real life experiences

...is the name of one category I am entering in a photo competition.

Needless to say, I have a surplus of such images (not to mention the experiences themselves).

Help me narrow them down.
Young monks dressed as the Cemetery Lords, Thiksey Monastery Cham dance, Ladakh 2007.
Newar Astamatrika dancer just before donning his mask and entering trance. Patan, Nepal 2006.

Some of these photos will be familiar to long-term viewers here. The deadline is 30 June.Ladakhi ladies serve tea at the Dalai Lama's teachings, Choglamsar Ladakh, 2007


Tibetan Buddhist nuns blindfolded for the Dalai Lama's Kalachakra initiation, Andhra Pradesh 2006. Rajasthani dancer and musicians visiting Nepal's Bhaktapur, 2006


My friend Mohanlal and a visitor at the inauguration of the new Murugan temple, Parayakadavu, Kerala. 2005
Washing the buffalo, Pune. 2005

Makar Sankranti musicians in the street, during the Kalachakra, Andhra Pradesh. 2006
Sadhu doing puja in the Ganges, Rishikesh, 2006.



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