I could cite many of these. For example, my father’s fascination for photography and home-movie making which pervaded our family life; a dream-like childhood visit to a still magical Borobudur in the early 60’s; my first encounter with a darkroom at the age of 12 when the very first pictures I developed were of Tibetan refugees (“Who are these people?” I was completely fascinated); an unforeseen meeting with His Holiness the Dalai Lama in ’82. There are many more. But all of these too have endless ‘back stories’ behind them.

As a photographer, one is not only a witness to the moment it all crystallizes, but also the vehicle for these causes and conditions to arise. In a sense one is almost captive to them, though of course each one of us is busy creating them. So when, as photographers, we put ourselves in these situations, what we see is a reflection of our inner world.

Having grown-up as a photographer with the maxim “capture the moment”, it took me a while to realize that it is really more like being captured by the moment. These moments which have arisen before me and the camera are symbolic of my own journey: sometimes banal, sometimes highly charged, but always manifestations of my own voyage of discovery in Buddhism.