A Bowl of Compassion

Walking down a road in Bodhgaya, which ran along a stone wall, I noticed this poster. I have no idea who the man in the poster is - an Indian politician, a character in a Bollywood film? His formidable gaze immediately caught my attention. I think the sign next to him is entirely unrelated, but I love the juxtaposition.

San Juan Bautista Baptismal Font

This photo was taken inside of Mission San Juan Bautista, in San Benito County, California. Hitchcock fans will know this mission from the film Vertigo.

Ruined Farmhouse

During the summer of 1997, I took a B&W photography class in Rochester, New York. This was the best image I produced for that class. It was taken with a Nikon FG. Although I enlarged the image in a darkroom, this digital version was produced years later, through the scanned negative. I saw this ruined house in the Finger Lakes region, while driving to Ithaca. I'm sure it's gone now.

Berkeley Mural

While living in the East Bay in the late 1990s, I decided to take a photo of this mural on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley (California), which I had often passed. The man in the photo happened to be walking by.

Lupin in the Horse Pasture

In the spring and summer of 2009, the wildflowers in the Ventana Wilderness were unusually spectacular - a legacy of a major fire in 2008. The "Horse Pasture" is about an hour hike from Tassajara.

Fire Poppies

Fire poppies are only seen in the first summer after a major forest fire. The seeds from the flower lie dormant in the soil, usually for many years, and have a protective shell that needs extreme temperatures to open. In the summer of 2009, many could be seen in the mountains around Tassajara.

Fire Poppies (2nd view)

Village on the Way to Mahakala Caves

Walking with friends to the Mahakala Caves near Bodhgaya in 2011, we passed through this village. The barnyard quality of the village was very much in evidence, and except for the bicycle, I almost had the sense of walking back in time several centuries. I was surprised to see that, a short way past this village, a Buddhist monastery was being built.

Math

A "Math" is a Hindu monastery. This is the Math in Bodhgaya, as seen from the side near the river. Most visitors to Bodhgaya probably don't even know this building is here. If they do notice it, most have no idea what it is. The abbots of this monastery, known by the title "Mahant", controlled the site of the Mahabodhi temple and the surrounding area for centuries, until the Mahabodhi temple was reconstructed in the late 19th century, and Buddhists began to visit the site again.

Ladakhi House

On a village trek in the mountains of Ladakh, we passed this house. It is fairly typical of traditional Ladakhi architecture. The person in the photo is my dear departed friend and colleague, Rebecca Tarbotton. This photo was taken in 1999 with a Nikon FG.

Voodoo Fetishes

Most people are familiar with Vodou (Voodoo) in its Caribbean or Bayou variant, which is characterized by its synthesis with Catholicism. But the origins of the religion lay in sub-Saharan West Africa, particularly in Togo, Benin, and Nigeria. At the main market in Cotonou, Benin, there is a section devoted to the sale of Vodou fetishes, consisting of various sorts of animal skins, bones, body parts, etc. This and the next photograph were taken with a Nikon FG in 1997.

Voodoo Fetishes

Ramayana Door

I found this richly painted set of doors, depicting a scene from the famed Hindu epic, the Ramayana, in a Buddhist temple in Bangkok. Although the Ramayana is not a Buddhist story, it is very popular in Thailand.

St. Joseph in the Light

This photo was taken in Kalimpong, a hill station near Darjeeling in the northern part of West Bengal, India. Along with several Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, Kalimpong boasts quite a few churches, as the area was heavy proselytized by Christian missionaries during the period of British rule. This is the interior of the main chapel at St. Joseph's convent. The statue on the right is one of the few I've seen of Joseph holding the baby Jesus.