On Monday, The New York Times published an evocative gallery of 19 images by David Butow under the headline, “Photographing the Part of Buddhism That Can’t Be Seen.”
Image from “Seeing Buddha: A Photographic Journey.” © 2012 David Butow
For much of 2012, Butow traveled throughout Buddhist Asia and America, taking up “the challenge of capturing the essence of spiritual experience.” The result is the just-published Seeing Buddha: A Photographic Journey, and as much as we enjoyed the extraordinary photographs, it was the Times’ reporting on Butow’s thinking behind them that we found equally intriguing:
“‘Among the core concepts of Buddhism is the idea of understanding your individual experience of living and the way that you are connected to other people,’ he said. ‘As a photographer, you observe your subject, try to become connected and then capture that in a single moment.’
“Mr. Butow started the project after many years as a photojournalist who often covered conflicts and disasters…He said that empathy in the face of suffering and a sense of shared humanity were important both in photography and in Buddhism.”
The Times’ piece is here, with more images and info at the Seeing Buddha site here.
The photos are so amazing. Thank you for sharing :] Hope to se more soon…
I do agree with Mr Butow that photography and Buddhism is similar, but only to a certain extend. I would say that both would help us to calm our minds in different ways that we may not know. But it helps us. Photography would help us capture scenes that happen around our lives, but for Buddhism, it teaches us how to appreciate each and every single detail of our lives. Even for the details that cannot be captured!
What I like most about Buddhism would be the Buddha images, which some include photography that helps to capture the scared images. I really like some of the photos of these holy images from this link: http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/gal…
Hi, amazin photos. Thanks. Here are my "buddhist" photos from Mongolia and Thailand http://freepix.eu/tag/buddhism/