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Jigme
and Sonam
ages 8 and 18 months
Changtang, Himalayan Highlands
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Jigme and Sonam are sisters whose nomadic
family had just come down from the Himalayan highlands to
their winter camp on the Changtang, or Tibetan Plateau, at
an altitude of 16,500 feet. When I gave Jigme a Polaroid of
herself she looked at it, squealed, and ran into her tent.
It must have been the first time she had seen herself since
her family did not own a mirror.
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Tenzin Gyatso
age 59, India
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Born to a peasant family, he was discovered to be the reincarnation
of the Buddha of Compassion at the age of two. At four he
was installed as the fourteenth Dalai Lama and then as a
teenager he faced the invasion of his country. Eight years
later he was forced to flee to neighboring India, where
he still lives. Our appointment for this portrait was set
for the afternoon on the rooftop of his residence. As he
approached, I nervously held out my hand to greet him. He
avoided it, stuck his fingers in my ribs, let out his famous
laugh, and tickled me.
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Yama
age 8
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Yama came with her parents and three sisters on a six-week
pilgrimage to the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa from the province
of Kham. "Yama helped carry our ten-month-old daughter
much of the way," her mother said. "We noticed very
early that she was born with the true spirit of wanting to
help others."
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Namgyal
and Thuman
ages 13 and 16, India
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Although Thuman and Namgyal were in a monastery, their parents
felt they could get a better education and retain more of
their culture if they left Tibet. Like hundreds of children
every year, they said good-bye to their parents not knowing
if they would ever see them again. They were then smuggled
out of Tibet over the Himalayas and into India.
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Samdu
age 11
selectively toned silver gelatin
print
23 x 27 inches
Samdu was stricken with a crippling malady known as "big bone
disease" when she was five. Even though she does her best to
help care for this rapeseed field, she has to be carried everywhere
by her friends. This arthritis-like disease, which only afflicts
children, is virtually unknown outside her village.
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Dolma
age 38
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Dolma had never seen a westerner
up close before. She would reach out, touch my shoulder, then
quickly pull her arm back into her chuba and laugh. As a young
girl, she escaped across the Tibet-India border with her family
after word reached their remote nomad camp that they would
be forced to live in a commune.
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Pusang
and Dundup
ages 64 and 32
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Pusang and Dundup are father and son. It was a very cold and
windy day in December when I arrived at their nomad camp located
at an altitude of 17,000 feet. They had just finished offering
prayers prior to sacrificing two yaks for their winter food
supply. Everything was so primal, it reminded me of what it
might have been like to come across native peoples on the North
American plains two hundred years ago.
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Palden
age 62, Dharamsala
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Palden was arrested at his monastery in 1959 and spent twenty-four
years in prison, where he was tortured frequently. He lost twenty
teeth in one beating alone. He managed to flee Tibet in 1987
and came to Dharamsala. He told me, "I no longer have anger
for my captors. However, I feel it is my responsibility to let
the outside world know what is happening in Tibet."
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Botok and
Tsangpa 78
ages 76 and 78, Ladakh, India
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Botok and Tsangpa were classified as wealthy by the Communist
authorities in 1962 because they owned almost a thousand sheep
and goats. Threatened with imprisonment, they fled across the
boarder into the Indian district of Ladakh with their three
daughters and Tsangpa's other husband. They told me that it
is not uncommon for Tibetan women to take more than one husband.
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Dawa
age 15, Drigung Valley, Tibet
selectively toned silver gelatin print
23 x 27 inches
Dawa is a student and the eldest son
of a barley farmer. Although responsible for his family's herd
of goats, he spends most of his free time reading - especially
anything written in Tibetan. He proudly showed me a well-worn
copy of an English-Tibetan phrase book that a western traveler
had given him two years before. |
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