How appropriate in seeing as we’re amidst the Thanksgiving holiday. I would say traveling the world, seeing and experiencing other cultures has been the thing that has most shape my perspective on life and realize how good we have it. It makes you really appreciate the small conveniences that we don’t even ever realize we have here in the states. Beyond that, the ability to make a living taking pictures if you break it down to what it actually is, is quite a hard to come by thing in and of itself. This doesn’t exist in the harder to reach parts of the world. The ability to do something that you love, be creative, and live is something in rare form. It definitely takes a certain type of person that can deal with the sacrifice of stability especially in the beginning years, but if you can stick through it you can do it. That combined with the opportunity of living where I live allows me to do what I love and make money, and for that I am truly thankful.

That said, I feel giving back to the world is something we all should practice, despite whatever your situation, and where ever you are. I’ve been in some of the most remote places around the world, and so many times, the most simplest people are so kind, they will give you the shirt off their back. Everyone has their own situation, own capacity, and own way they can give back and that is what is the most important. For some people it’s the gift of money, for some it’s the gift of talent, some people it’s the shirt off their back.

I’ve always felt compelled to give back with the talent of photography that I feel I’ve been gracefully given. For me, I’ve been fortunate to connect with my good friend Adam Braun a couple years ago. He founded one of the now, fastest growing charities started in the last five years: Pencils of Promise. It’s been amazing to be a part of, and to see how my photography has helped them to blow up to where they are now. When I met Adam, we connected on the philosophies of the non-profit world of running a non-profit as a business(Check out Adam’s “For Purpose” talk at the Google Zeitgeist conference). In the end, money is what facilitates the cause. You must create an engine that allows the cause to be done. That engine is largely dependent on visual communications that convey to the potential donors what that organization is doing. When I started working with Adam, Pencils of Promise was just him, and he had built one school with another on the way. Fast forward two years later and we just broke ground on our 50th school. Last week at the PoP Gala, it was so exciting to see us raise over $1M in one evening. You don’t have to always give your services for free and shouldn’t if it’s your only source of income, but that’s something I’ve chosen to do with PoP because I feel it’s my way of giving back. It’s all what you feel personally. (Some posts of work I’ve done with them. Laos: http://nonk.it/vuJ3fW Guatemala: http://nonk.it/k1H4jb Nicaragua: http://nonk.it/aiptev)

Another different give back opportunity I just had was in Tibet with the people we came across. We took people’s portrait with a Polaroid to give to them. It was amazing to see their faces light up when they received the picture. Many of the people having never seen a camera before. It was such a great opportunity to give back and hear their stories which leads me into the next part of this post.

I wanted to tell you about an opportunity to be able give back to the world in the realm of photography. It’s called Help Portrait, started by a good friend of mine, Jeremy Cowart. The project has grown to a global scale and is taking place on December 10th.

The basic premise is:
1: Find someone in need.
2: Take their portrait.
3: Print their portrait.
4: Deliver it to them.

I would encourage you all to get involved with Help Portrait this year, and if it’s not feasible or your cup of tea, find another way. Your way of giving back to the world and those in need.

For more information and how to get involved check out the Help Portrait website. http://help-portrait.com/

There comes a nice mystique when not researching the place you’re going before you go. I like going without expectations, which partially happened on this trip. One of the big reason’s I wanted to go to Tibet was the amazing travel portrait work of Phil Borges. I met him a while back and saw his book on the Tibetan Portrait, including the Dalai Lama. Since then, the Tibetan nomads were what appealed to me, and what I inspired me to want to shoot there.

That said, my expectations upon traveling there were very different than what we found. I think a lot was due to the areas we were in. None the less, we shifted directions into something that I found even more interesting. The Tibetan Buddhist Pilgrimage. It’s nothing like I’ve ever seen before first hand. The animation above is the 57 year old Buddhist monk, Lubsang Shlrep doing his prostration pilgrimage from his hometown Yunan. The prostration as you can see is three steps, hands up in pray form over your head, down to the chest, to the stomach, then the whole body on the ground forehead touching, back up to your feet, and over again. Lubsang had been doing this every day for 1 year, 3 months, and one day the day that we met him. He sleeps on the side of the road in a plastic bag, and carries his belongings in a hand pull cart on wheels. He pulls the cart 150 meters or so, then goes back to where he left off and does his prostration. Over and Over again. The end destination is Lhasa, the Buddhist holy city. It’s about 2000K from his home town, and he covers about 5K per day. Witnessing this event for the first time completely blew my mind, as I’m sure it does if you’re reading this information for the first time.

The journey continues with Jeff Holt, our guide Lumbum, and “driver”. Mind you, you can’t go anywhere in Tibet as a tourist without a tour guide. You have to have one to even get permits to get into the country. One one of the other highlights of the trip was camping with a group of people on their pilgrimage at 1 year, 5 months, 1 day. They were a friendly bunch, and very welcoming to us. They had some kids in the group that just walked along with them, then the youngest pilgrim doing the prostration was 20 years old, all the way up to 36. Camping with them was an amazing way to experience, even for an evening what they’ve experienced for roughly 516 days. They’ve even gone that long without a shower! Living like this quite puts things into perspective. This crew of people were mostly comprised of Monks and Nuns on their journey from Amdo. Dena, is a young nun that’s in charge of taking care of the kids in the group, and staying ahead at the camp sites to cook the meals for the rest of the group. Even though she doesn’t do the prostration, she is still considered on her pilgrimage but serving in a different way. The ones doing the prostration have calluses on their hands and their foreheads from the repetitious motions. They are geared up with aprons, hand paddles, gloves, and sometimes tire rubber attached to the toes of their shoes. We hung out with them by the campfire that evening. Being a white American, my homie Jeff Holt turned out to be a big deal and a few of the younger gen kids wanted photos with him.

The second highlight of the trip was the next night staying at a famous monastery that was at about 15,000ft in elevation. You really feel it up there, especially if you’re walking up stairs for about 3-5 steps. The temperature was about 15ºF outside, and probably 16º inside our room. The view was pretty incredible. The next morning at sunrise, we hiked up to see the Sky Burial, yet another crazy thing to see. People from all over bring their loved ones’ bodies to the monastery to be buried in the sky there. Essentially, the monk brings the body out of a box, starts cutting off the skin, and when they’re ready, the hundreds of vultures hovering around get welcomed to devour the body in a matter of 10-15 minutes leaving only the bones left. They then cut up the bones and either feed them to the birds or burn them. Being sky buried here at this monastery means you’re guaranteed to be re-incarnated to a human body in exactly 49 days. I wish I could have taken photos, but they were strictly not allowed. In fact, we got kicked out and ended up having to watch from way up on the hill.

Upon our return to Lhasa, we stopped to say hi to our friend Lubsang as he was probably about 25k further down the road from where we saw him before. The rest of the time in Lhasa, we shot some portraits of the different people that have made their pilgrimage to the holy city. The people watching around the Barkhor is fascinating. Buddhism manifested at it’s fullest.

All in all, it was a great trip. Tibet is one of the most interesting countries I’ve been to due to the religion that dominates it. The prostration as interesting as it is, is very difficult to capture it’s entirety in one single image because it looks so bizarre. You can learn more about how I shoot travel work in my book, Photo Trekking.

Many thanks to our guide, Lumbum. Check out his site if you ever venture to Tibet: Tibetanshamantour.com

Lubsang Shlrep

16,500ft

Lhasa, The Buddhist Holy City