Some philosophical notes

"Sadhus", the plural name for Hindu religious men and women (the word means "excellent") on pilgrimage, Pashupatinath Temple, Nepal, for "Mahasivaratri", the night of Siva. "Old Kathmandu", photos taken mostly in the 1970's, a very different world from today's Nepal. "Swayambhu" is a large Buddhist reliquary and complex, near Kathmandu. "Tibet" records a horse festival held at Litang, in far eastern Tibet (Khams). "Composites" are whimsical attempts to suggest ideas with images, something akin to Chinese landscape paintings and Tibetan scrolls.

I studied Tibetan Buddhist scroll painting in Nepal (which I chronicle in my book, Rhythms of a Himalayan Village, and also studied traditional Chinese painting in Taiwan. Both of these artforms can be, indeed often are, considered forms of writing just as much as they are considered to be aesthetic or, sensual works of art. We read meaning into the visual world around us all the time to create culture. Word and image are so intimately related for everyone---like Chinese writing and painting---that we can read into photographs ideas and meanings that we more ordinarily associate with prose.