A Day of Prayer
Yangon (Rangoon) Burma 2012
The Burmese are devout Buddhists and on this day of prayer, the Full Moon Festival, the pagoda was teeming with families, couples, groups of teenagers. In other words, everyone was there. They were there to pray and meditate, to light candles to circumambulate the temple.
Smaller temples and shrines with small gold structures, like mini pagodas, surround the large gold stupa called Shwedagon. Many of these shrines were built by wealthy and elderly religious Buddhists as a propitiation prior to their death. Perhaps the custom is a way of gaining an indulgence for any transgressions committed during their lifetime.
The smaller temples crowd onto one another. Each more intricate and ornate than the next. My eye couldn’t find a resting place. Where is the viewpoint? Where is the essence of Shwedagon? I tried shooting people as they lit candles or knelt before a statue deep in prayer. I tried shooting the milling crowds and zooming in on the face of an ivory Buddha. I got out my tripod and shot some HDR.
When I got home, I found this shot. I got lucky. I have a silhouette of a monk and the crowd and a small stupa. For me the monk makes the shot. His outline superimposed on the stupa gives a ‘sense of place’. The exposure isn’t perfect, nor could it be with the range of light from nearly dark to blazing setting sun. I supersaturated the colors but didn’t manage to get detail in the highlights of the stupa. I decided to accept that flaw because my monk’s silhouette more than compensated. My photo shows the Full Moon Festival at Shwedagon. That was my goal.
I shot with a wide angle lens and just luckily the monk was in my viewpoint. But it’s a lesson. Maybe next time I’ll remember this photo and ask someone to stand in my photo as a design element rather than as a subject. I like that idea. I just hope I remember it when the time comes.
A photographer I admire used to say that you practice at home so that when you are ‘in the field’ your instincts guide you as you shoot. You can’t run through a check list before each shot. You just shoot and your experience guides you. Luck might be a factor but it isn’t the only factor and maybe not even the most important one.
I used Win at www.asiaphoto@myanmar.com
Win planned my itinerary and accompanied me and my friends as a photographer. He set up shots and got us to the right place at the right time. Check with Win if you want a great tour of Burma, photographic or cultural.