Today is the day (or night) I am finally starting to blog for our Re-think assignment. As I have been going to a Tibetan Buddhist Center for a while to study Buddhist philosophy I decided to make a work about the Tibetan community based in London. I got to know Tibetans via Spirituality; therefore, one aspect of my motivation for the project is, to find out who the “other” Tibetans are. Also, the image of Tibetans we have in the West, is the robe wearing nun or monk with shaved head…Yet, it was important for me to have my teacher on board, he is a great source of inspiration for this project. He agreed straight away to be portrayed which was a good start.
That was sometimes in 2010 - the bigger task of getting to know the Tibetan community was still ahead of me. Thanks to a event at the Buddhist Center, where only Tibetans took part, I managed to make some contacts. Shortly afterward was the celebration in honor of HHDL receiving the Nobel prize on the 10th of December, this was another good occasion to make contacts and to finally experience the “other” side of Tibetans. I was warmly welcomed, they are really open minded and it was so easy and truly nice to talk to people! I did enjoy myself a lot in many ways, also by looking at the circle dancing up to the moment I was asked to dance too… I am usually an avid dancer but I did feel awkward at the beginning… Anyhow, I went for it and that was good. The night went on, the guys got drunk and at some point the light switched to disco light and so did the music. Well, that was a good introduction to the unknown Tibetan - party time a gogo, dancing like crazy! And I thought nice…
Xmas came, the project was on hold until mid January. Calling the numbers I got and meeting people - my key person was (or still is) Pema Yoko. She is the director of Students for a Free Tibet UK and knows the community in and out. She is a such a great source for me to get to know people, she also introduce me to her extended family. Her dad was one of the first Tibetans to arrive in the UK back in the 1970s. Not only is she the connection point, but also a great partner to discuss the progress of the project.
As for the methodological point of view, my first idea was to shoot in 6x6 colour negative and to use a whole contact sheet. I asked the people, whom I’m going to portray, if they’d be ok to write me something, whether it’s a political message, sentence or even a word.. But I have the impression that this is not going to happen. I have also abandoned the idea with the whole contact sheet: plain simply, because some of the portraits are just not good enough.
I was introduced to photography in the “old skool” sense with film, but I have switched to digital a while ago; after all this was courageous decision and on top the 6x6 format means a completely different way of composing the photo. A proper challenge and I am struggeling with it! But at the same time it is hugely beneficial for my photographic practice and we are asked to re-think exactly that. I am slowly getting there, below you can see Geshe Tashi Tsering and Buddha, of course: