Sheila Rock: Sera, The Way Of The Tibetan Monk

Photo © Sheila Rock-All Rights Reserved

The Sera monastery is near Mysore (India) and houses 5,000 Buddhist monks living in exile.  It's one of the best locations to witness the monk debates on the teachings of Buddha and the philosophy of Buddhism. It developed over the centuries as a famous place of scholarly learning, training hundreds of Buddhist scholars.

Sheila Rock is based in London, and her photographs were published in TIME, Elle, Glamour, Rolling Stone, Architectural Digest and the Sunday Times. Her photographs were shown in various exhibitions in New York City, London and Turin. Her portraits form part of the public collection at the National Portrait Gallery in London.

The Way of The Tibetan Monks' gallery of duotone photographs depicts the way of life in this Buddhist community, and shows a fraction of the photographs published in the photographer's book of the same title.

Writing of monk debates reminded me that I photographed and audio recorded the lively monk debates in a monastery in Bhutan, titled Sangha Debates.

Jonah M. Kessel: Tibet

Photo © Jonah M. Kessel- All Rights Reserved

It's been a while since I featured  images of Tibet, and Jonah Kessel's work is well worth the wait. I particularly liked his use of a wide angle lens, like the above picture.

Jonah M. Kessel is an interactive art director, visual journalist and also describes himself as a nomadically curious photographer. His company, currently based in Beijing, offers visual communication solutions on a wide array of platforms including photography, amongst others.

Prior to working as the Creative Director of China Daily in Beijing, Jonah worked as a photography and design consultant for the Journalism Development Group in North Africa; as the Visual Director of the Tahoe Daily Tribune in South Lake Tahoe, Calif.; and as a freelance photographer for multiple media outlets across the United States. He received more than 35 awards from media organizations for his photography, web and design projects.

His international travels took him to Algeria, Malaysia, India, China, Tibet, Nepal, and the Philippines.