Inle Lake
The jewel of Burma’s Shan state is Inle Lake, a long, shallow body of freshwater situated at 2,900 feet above sea level, surrounded by lush hills and inhabited by about 150,000 people. The largest ethnic group of Inle Lake are the Intha, which means “sons of the lake.” The Intha are a Tibeto-Burmese people who [...]
Inle Lake Fisherman
Falling in love with this guy, photographically speaking, was not hard to do. The fisherman of Inle Lake are famous for this balletic, one-legged rowing style.
Angkor Rice Farming
Angkor is the world’s most extensive medieval hydraulic city and the cultivation of rice around the temples continues today. Monsoon rains start the short, intense planting season in summer. The lands are flat and the work is hard, all done by humans and animals. The farmers grow enough rice for themselves to eat for the [...]
IKTT Reviving Cambodian Ikat
On the outskirts of Siem Reap nestled away in a tropical forest, the enlightened Institute of Khmer Traditional Textiles (IKTT) is working to restore and preserve Cambodia’s silk textile traditions. The Khmer Rouge all but obliterated the country’s artisans during the 1970s, including its weavers who produced silk ikat, one of the world’s most complex [...]
Anokhi Factory
The clothing retailer Anokhi is one of my favorite things about India. A trip to one of their shops brightens even the worst day in Delhi. Not only are their block printed clothes and other textiles beautifully designed and tailored, they actually run a socially and environmentally ethical business. Before leaving India I visited their [...]
Himalayan Satoyama
These images are of a barley harvest two years ago in Zanskar. They remind me of an article I read recently about the Japanese idea of satoyama, meaning “hamlet-mountain,” and the need to protect our human-influenced natural environments like this one, as well as our pristine natural environments. What satoyama embodies is traditional agricultural knowledge, [...]
Ajrakh Printing in Dhamadka
Another set of images from the archives! Dhamadka is one of two remaining places in Gujarat where traditional ajrakh block printing is still done. See the MAIWA website for how the cloth evolves from start-to-finish. It’s an extremely labor-intensive process and the results are gorgeous. The last image shown here was a test cloth, but I [...]
Sanganeri Block Printing
Just outside of Jaipur, the small town of Sanganer one of the largest block printing centers in Rajasthan and India. Each block printing center has its own traditional designs, and today Sanganer does both its traditional and new styles of work. The bus dropped me off along the main road in front of a small shop [...]
Rehwa Society
Roshanara Bi was unlikely to become one of the top weavers of Maheshwar. Born into a poor family from the Muslim area of town, at age 16 she was married off to a young man from a neighboring village. She bore a son but did not want to stay in the marriage, and after three [...]
Norbulingka Institute
The Norbulingka Institute near Dharamsala was established to preserve Tibetan culture and traditional arts. It has workshops for thanka painting and appliqué, woodworking, metal sculpture and textiles, and produces top-notch work, all done by Tibetan refugees. There’s a beautiful shop where the goods are sold, a Buddhist temple, a doll museum, a delicious cafe, a [...]
Oh, Calcutta…
Calcutta is a unique city to India and the world. True to its reputation, it’s insanely crowded and chaotic, sidewalks full of all kinds of human activity, and the contrast between the old and new, poor and rich, is more acute than anyplace else I’ve seen in India. The city has amazing colonial architecture, thousands [...]
Cochin, Kerala
Cochin (Kochi) is made up of a handful of islands and peninsulas including the main hub of Ernakulum and the historic areas of Fort Kochi and Mattancherry. Most of these images are from Fort Kochi, where you can still see and feel the Portuguese influence. Sometimes it feels like Cuba or Latin America too—the same [...]
Jew Town
The Jews first arrived in Kerala in the 1st century BC at a time when Kerala traded with the Greeks, Romans and Arabs. The Jews in Kerala mainly lived in Cochin (Kochi) in an area now called Jew Town. They were an important part of Kerala’s spice trade and maintained huge warehouses of black pepper, [...]
Free Community Kitchen
The Langar at The Golden Temple is simply amazing. It serves free, delicious food to tens (or hundreds) of thousands of people a day, 24-hours a day. And the whole operation is run by volunteer labor. The free kitchen is a feature of all Sikh temples (gurdwaras), and doing volunteer work in the kitchens is [...]
The Evolution of a Smile
He initiated these shots every time our paths crossed. I never saw him any other way.
Rainy Day Trip
Today the Koreans and I hired a jeep and visited four monasteries in Ladakh: Taktok, Chemrey, Stakna and Matho. It was a rainy day which is unusual for Ladakh, but it’s happening more frequently in the past few years due to global warming (and is having disastrous effects on the walls and murals of the [...]
Living, working and moving on
After vowing that I’d never wait tables again, I have to eat my words. For the past week I’ve waited tables at Norlak, the little Tibetan restaurant where I’ve eaten daily since arriving in Leh. I knew that the place was short staffed (their cook left a few weeks ago, tourists have been pouring into [...]
dZi Foundation | Vision Clinic
Another good day. Today I photographed dZi’s vision clinic, which was transported and set up at the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies in Choglamsar in the morning and at Thiksey Monastery in the afternoon. These images are of people reading eye charts at CIB. DZi can make most glasses on the spot for people, including [...]
dZi Foundation | Dental Clinic
For the past few days I’ve photographed a vision and dental clinic for local students organized by the dZi Foundation. DZi partners with Himalayan Dental Relief Project, the Lion’s Club, and the Ladakh Nuns Association to put together this clinic in Ladakh, which is in its 10th year. The dentists, eye specialists, and most volunteers [...]
Ladakh Prayer Festival: Day 2
Tea and lunch for the festival are made on the premises. I spent this morning in the indoor kitchen where the teas (butter and sweet) are made in huge cauldrons and then dispatched out in big kettles to be served to the monks, nuns and attendees. Everyone brings their own cups. The older monks and [...]
Central Institute of Buddhist Studies
In 1959, the year of the Chinese takeover of Tibet, the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (commonly referred to as CIB) was established in Choglamsar, a suburb of Leh. CIB instructs students in Buddhist history and philosophy, traditional Tibetan medicine (Amchi), and the Buddhist arts of sculpture, painting and woodwork. It also acts as a [...]
