Sera Debates Photo

Photographer’s Note

Located 5km north of Lhasa, Sera Monastery houses about 600 monks. At around 3pm the monks come out to the courtyard-like area, go into groups and start debating. In each group one monk, standing up, grills the ones sitting down with philosophical questions.

Apparently the monks use various debating styles. Some get into animated discussions, waving their arms and slapping their hands and even shouting. Others simply sit back and have a nice chat, as captured here.

Sterne, jeanfrancois, christina, bisok has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

Sterne (2927) 2005-06-10 4:29

Great composition, Perfect technic.
Que dire sinon encore, encore.
Stéphane.

langaloo (489) 2005-06-10 4:34

Nice picture, it shows well what the documentaries say about these Tibetan Monks, their art in debating all kind of subjects. Did you have the chance to know some of these subjects? If yes, what were they? Why grass is green? Why the Dalai Lama must punish (???) his cats when they are very naughty?

faubry (32499) 2005-06-10 7:50

i like these red colors and good sharp. very beautiful expression
francine

jeanfrancois (1259) 2005-06-10 15:54

Too bad we can't have the so peculiar sound of hands slapped and arguments... Great shot !

christina (2040) 2005-07-24 20:31

The long horizontal composition and wonderful color work well with the variety expressions on the monks faces. I like the natural feeling og the shot. Well done!

fijiphil (1345) 2006-01-18 14:17

Great shot. as already mentioned, the close cropping top and bottom is perfect. I would be interested to know, how did you gain the trust of the monks here? Did you speak to them/ask permission? Or just hang around watching until they had forgotten you were there?