Dalai Lama

I have always been an admirer of Tibetan culture and His Holiness The Dalai Lama. You can imagine my excitement when, in the fall of 2005, I received a call from my friend Claybourne Carson, Professor of History at Stanford University and Director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Research and Education Institute asking me to do a portrait of His Holiness the Dalai Lama during his visit there.  His Holiness had accepted the invitation of the Institute expressly because Martin Luther King, Jr. is one of his heroes!  The Dalai Lama arrived soon after he had addressed thousands in Maples Pavilion and at Memorial Church.

I felt especially happy to be able to personally greet His Holiness as part of a small group of staff from the Institute.  He arrived with his entourage and shook our hands and blessed the kata silk scarf that each of us had around our neck.  The kata is an auspicious symbol and lends a positive note to the start of any ceremony or relationship.

My challenge that day was to get a good portrait of His Holiness juxtaposed to the framed portrait of Martin on the wall behind him.  It took some juggling with all the other newsmen in the room, the lights and the other paraphanalia. But, I managed to snap the portrait that I wanted including two of the greatest leaders in history in one picture, one from the West and one from the East-- two heroes of mine in one portrait.  As Henri Cartier Bresson says, “a decisive moment”.