I was a novice Photo

Photographer’s Note

A daily ceremony no one misses when visiting Luang Prabang is the morning food donation for the monks. The oldest monk takes the head of the line followed by sometimes dozens of novices, depending on the importance of their monastery. While not as impressive but even more emotional, a line up of 3 or 4 old monks will witness that their temple is still alive, though it will certainly be closed in a few years.

What fascinated me is that one could see almost the whole people of Luang Prabang outside their houses, novices and monks walking, believers sitted or kneeled on the side of the streets, all this in a TOTAL SILENCE : you would barely hear the rubbing of their feet against the road.

We already can enjoy quite a set of Luang Prabang food donation photos in TE (I specially like Manny's -see inside my favs box-) as I knew I hardly could do better or renew the genre, I took a chance on getting the monk's view of the ceremony.

I then stood at the back of a line, and accompanied the monks for a short walk... normally the less experienced novice takes the last position, I was then perfectly at my place. I was a novice (and so are you if you're looking at this shot currently ;-) ...).

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I noticed that monks beg food going without shoes but always forgot when talking to novices to ask the reason why. Can somebody give the reason why.. is the food donation ceremony assimilated to praying, meditation or something....

maciekda, Galeota, michel_r, gustav, hispic, Wolbo, Lio, cgrindahl, aryary, Rhiannon, eleparc, Mrg, jp80, Igel, Riz, markoci, DiaAzul, kajspice has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

maciekda (19599) 2004-11-11 16:08

beautiful picture Luko, very original in fact, bold compostion with the monk's back in the foreground, nice effect of shallow DOF, very good technically. and it is nicely grainy - iso100 and grain, interesting... very good stuff.
so when are you going to join the digital world?
oh, one thing here - if you stepped a bit to the right the monk would be more on the left side, on the line with the monk in front of him and we could see more of the stuff on the ground.. just a thought.. i still like this picture.

Galeota (10334) 2004-11-11 16:17

I guess that everyone being so SILENT, and you being a novice (as well as me as I'm looking at your photo right now), it wouldn't be much appreciated to shout at the guy in the middle of the street, over there in the upper left corner, to get out of the way I suppose (he draws too much my attention)...

This being said, and although I instantly thought about Manny's beautiful photograph, I must say I prefer your POV.

There is a discretion and humility coming from that last position on the line, allowing respectfully the scene to take place there in front of you almost as if it was untouched (by your sinful parisian eyes ;o)) ).

bebel (7431) 2004-11-11 16:47

Je trouve la photo intéressante dans la mesure où elle nous met à la place d'un moine. la composition en enfilade accentue se sentiment. L'éclairage et la qualité du piqué est parfaite. Mais le flou me gêne un peu, je ne comprend pas quel était ton intention.

Je suis pas assez bon pour tout piger la note en anglais, je l'ai traduite, c'est pire, enfin pas trop. (voir la traduction dans la discussion)
amitiés à toi, pierrot

Lio (783) 2004-11-11 18:29

Excellent DOF !
And the subject and composition are very surprising. I can fell like I were a monk in the queue. It is a great photo !

flydragon (0) 2004-11-11 18:58

Hello Luko
quelle belle idée que de se
placer a la place d'un Monk
superbe travail de profondeur de champs
qui rend cette image encore plus sensible
le temps est vraiment arreté ici.
j'aime ces textures de mur

as tu fait la queue plusieurs fois
pour avoir une double ration ;o)

bravo une tres belle image
et de tres belles couleurs
••simon••

cgrindahl (6109) 2004-11-11 20:52

I read the exchange about the PoV here and I frankly doubt it could be improved. Any change creates new problems and this clearly works well. Had you bent lower, the head of the second monk would have been obscured and having him the point of focus would have been lost, perhaps exchange for focus on the first man offering rice. I like the focus on the second monk who is at the edge of the frame peering to his right toward those offering food. Although the giving and receiving in this ritual as old as time is seamless, with no one giving and no one receiving, the silent waiting is important, whether in the monks or those observing the event. For the monks this is an extension of walking meditation practice with bare feet meeting the earth.

This is a very thoughtfully conceived and executed rendition Luko, a fine complement to what Manny has given us. His Morning Ritual is among my favorites as well.

aryary (126) 2004-11-11 23:19

Interesting photo on special and rare occasions at least to us who live in the other side of the world. I just wonder any specific reason on why you put the focus on the second monk ?

cessy (13647) 2004-11-12 4:36

Beautiful, very nice moment. you captured it very well. the angle and the colors are excellent

eleparc (24063) 2004-11-12 9:04

this is all true luko! this a magical moment indeed! you a novice??? hummm!!... not in photographical matters anyway!

Simon would naturally take your place and was already asking for a double portion of rice... il est incorrigible! thanks you for reviving this memory in my mind...

interesting angle... did you shoot without aiming? or did you wear high heel shoes from your wife or platform shoes from your daughter?

manny (21378) 2004-11-12 23:55

You have adifferent angle here Luko...I like it. And yes, I feel like I am in the line too. Good DOF control.

Monks aren't suppose to wear shoes because they are supoose to discard everything wordly...that's why they shave their head and wear only saffron. Of course not everyone do it...just as not everyone dress up properly when going to the church.

BTW, had you witnessed a longer queue...maybe around 300 monks in all?

Mrg (823) 2004-11-13 8:16

I like specially the DOF on this photograph. The way you managed it is fantastic.It gives the ideia of a endless row., Good work

jp80 (8437) 2004-11-13 10:12

J'aime beaucoup la profondeur de champ employée pour cette photo, qui me semble totalement adaptée. Les couleurs sont fidèlement retranscrites et le cadrage très bon. Bien vu !

Pascal

MKING (3050) 2004-11-13 12:41

I wouldn't step to the left or the right-- to go left is to obscure the first person sitting down which would make it harder to visually establish what is going on -- to go right would create too much overlap between the nearest novice and the subject. Like it just where you placed it Luko :)

Still seems a little confusing to me overall but that's probably due to the unexpected choice in depth of field. Creates a very impressionistic experience, which, no doubt, had I been there would have captured my curiosity and confusion perfectly.

The colour pallete is exquisite

Igel (518) 2004-11-16 16:40

Endless orange row. Great, Luko!

markoci (3917) 2004-12-01 21:16

Excellent shot. Love the colors, the composition, the DOF. Can't help to wonder though what if the focus was on the third boy in front of the one in focus.

philip_coggan (11) 2004-12-17 22:17

First thing I notice is the psychology: I'm placed in the position of being one of the line of monks (Rather a tall one). Second is the colours: with Velvia, who needs the saturation slider!.

I'd like to experiment with this further. The point of focus, for example: I see one monk, halfway down the line, no. 5 from us, turning to take food: a different photo if he were in focus and all else out. And I think of the 'custody of the eyes' that monks are supposed to keep (same as in Western monasticism): they look down at their feet while collecting alms - can something similar be done? I mean showing exactly what a monk would see, his own toes and the hem of the robe in front of him? (Actually he'd see his alms-bowl I guess).

I think this one isn't quite a success (sorry) - I don't think the focus on the 2nd monks head is psychologically right, nor even aesthetically the most effective possible...plus of course there's the extraneous tourist. But interesting!

(Incidentally, I saw the same thing in Nyaungshwe, the long line of monks out to collect their alms - I think it has to do with how strictly the local monastery enforces the rules - often they're very lax, but LP monasteries are strict, as are those in Sagaing and, apparently, Nyaungshwe).

kajspice (4534) 2007-02-04 14:15

somehow stumbled upon this at this late hour...

just adding my appreciation...

"There is a discretion and humility coming from that last position on the line, allowing respectfully the scene to take place there in front of you almost as if it was untouched (by your sinful parisian eyes" ...beautifully put...

yeah, that dude with the rusksack is quite annoying...