Back from Myanmar (or Burma, if you prefer) and back with lots of photos and lots memories! It’s was an overload to the five senses, fortunately only Vision can be reproduced in a photo but you’re still overwhelmed by everything happening around, but where to start?? Eventually you find your way on the streets and things start happening, mostly people, it’s hard not to shoot people at Asia and even harder not to capture the always cheerful Burmese people.

Now it’s time to slowly digest the huge amount of information gathered, to share the photos and the choice to start had to be my favorite subject: the Buddhist monks, specially the young novice monks.

Monks aren’t as open to photos as the rest of the Burmese, I guess for being an obvious target for the still-not-so-massive horde of tourists that point their compact cameras to the monk’s faces before leaving for the next landmark. The truth is they’re great photographic subjects, because of their red robes but also because of their serene and calm personality, even the younger ones. Sometimes it took some time, usually older monks are less comfortable, specially at touristy places like Schwedagon Paya or Sule Paya where they clearly were watching out for western people armed with cameras, but in places more off the beaten track things got a little easier: the photo elderly monk on the left was taken at a smaller Yangon pagoda, and one of the few monks who actually asked me to take a photo, while the monk standing at the front door was at a smaller monastery at a Mandalay’s residential area.

A subject inside the subject is novice monks, much easier to photograph than older ones. Despite not jumping towards you like all other Burmese children, kids are kids everywhere in the world and eventually their curiosity will take over. And then everything can happen, and really I mean everything, like the photo above taken at our second visit to the one of the most photographed monasteries of Myanmar (in a photo trip always pays off to save some time to revisit the some spots) where , or like in another monastery where this little monk on the right and his friends ended up shooting themselves with both my cameras, fortunately I had a small point and shoot to capture it (you never carry too many cameras with you). A priceless moment!

In the end you can act like a sniper, taking photos as a “drive-by shooting” or even renting a boat and shoot the passing monks at U Bein bridge at sunset, not the most elegant approach, according to street photography purists, but it’s always effective!

 

Stay tuned for more updates on my Myanmar trip and browse all photos here!!