PhotoBooks Tibet

In the early 1920s, the last great age of world explorers, a remarkable young woman, Janet Elliott Wulsin, set out with her husband, Frederick Wulsin, for the far reaches of China, Tibet, and Outer Mongolia to study the people, flora, and fauna of the region. Janet’s strenuous, eventful exploration is detailed by a text enriched with excerpts from her candid personal letters. The journey proved to be a test of the Wulsins’ endurance and of their relationship.

While in Asia, the Wulsins took many extraordinary photographs, which form the heart of this richly produced publication. They documented tribespeople and sublime desert landscapes, and, perhaps most remarkably, were allowed to photograph the interior of several of the great Tibetan Buddhist lamaseries, many of which have since been destroyed. Several dozen rare, hand-painted lantern slides survived and are reproduced here in splendid color. The photographs from the Wulsin expedition are now in the collection of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, in collaboration with which this volume is being produced.

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Khyentse Rinpoche led a life of devotion to spiritual enlightenment and teaching. With a similar dedication, Matthieu Ricard was Khyentse Rinpoche's personal assistant for the final fourteen years - living by his side every day, and sleeping at the foot of his bed at night. Ricard's photographic account of these years is a personal study of one of the most important teachers of Tibetan Buddhism, and forms an inspiring portrait of a land and its spirit.

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A personal assistant to the late poet, scholar, and master of Tibetan Buddhism chronicles in words, photographs, and passages from Khyentse Rinpoche's writings, his journey with his mentor through Tibet, Bhutan, India, and Nepal.

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The fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet offers his views on world peace and environmental responsibility in a collection of essays accompanied by photographs of his beloved Tibet.

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Portraits of Tibetan men, women, and children are accompanied by comments by the Dahli Lama.

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Born in Paris in 1868, French explorer Alexandra David-Neel was not your average 19th-century woman. Well-versed in Sanskrit and Buddhist philosophy, she eschewed drawing rooms and polite society for the vagabond life of a traveler and explorer. In 1923, at the age of 55, she undertook a daring journey into the heart of the Himalayas and a land at the top of the world: Tibet. Disguised as a pilgrim, she entered the forbidden city of Lhasa--the first European woman to do so--after 13 years spent wandering remote routes through China and Tibet. Though she took many photographs on her journey, David-Neel feared the pictures would fail to convey the wonders she saw. Now, 70 years after that intrepid Frenchwoman made her way to Tibet, Italian photographers Tiziana and Gianni Baldizzone have retraced David-Neel's route and photographed the splendors along the way. Their journey is documented in the lush and spellbinding book Tibet: Journey to the Forbidden City.

Interspersed among the brilliant images of present-day Tibet are David-Neel's original black-and-white photos, along with excerpts from her journals and the Baldizzones' explanations of the culture and landscape. Tibet: Journey to the Forbidden City is both a celebration of a remarkable woman and an elegiac portrait of a culture teetering on the brink of extinction.

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This work reveals the splendour and intricacies of Tibetan life in this collection of photographs. It celebrates the mountains and the Plateau of Tibet, the Forbidden City of Lhasa, the countryside, religious life, and the people in this troubled land. William Chapman's commentary accompanies his colour photographs that pay tribute to the majesty of the landscape and the uniqueness of the Tibetan people.

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This visually stunning, full-color portrait of Tibetan life in exile displays the spirit of Tibetan refugees living in the beautifil mountain settings of northern India and shows how they have preserved the best of their unique culture and identity.

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This is a very personal book. It is the outcome of the author's own search for truth. In order to let the reader participate in his quest, Peter Grieder tried to put the photographs and texts together in such a way that an inner context, a kind of thread on which the beads are strung, is presented. He guides the contemplative reader and observer from the outside to the inside on a journey through Ladakh, Zanskar, Bhutan and Tibet. The journey starts with images of flowers, lakes, children and landscapes. It ends with the Tibetan Book of the Dead. As in a mandala, the path begins on the periphery and ends in the guarded secret of the centre.

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Tibet suffered extreme political turmoil during the latter 20th century. Occupied in 1950, Red Guards destroyed thousands of official buildings and holy places during the Cultural Revolution and religious freedom and traditional education is still severely under threat. Due to the strength of the Tibetan's faith in Buddha and the Dalai Lama and against the odds many buildings have been reconstructed and their devotion and belief have remained extraordinarily strong. Buddhism permeates every part of a Tibetan's life, whether they are the Tibetans living in Tibet or the hundreds of thousands that live away from their homeland, in Nepal, India or the United States. This text is divided into five parts, with two main chapters devoted to the religious and lay Buddhists on their pilgrimages to holy sites. We see the monks in animated discussion, meditation and prayer and follow the devout believers on their arduous journeys to prayer. These two main chapters are interspersed with sections of portraits of this proud and dignified people who have their own innate sense of style and fashion demonstrated in the way they dress and adorn themselves. Known for his beautiful and uplifting imagery and soulful, but intimate, portraits, Steve McCurry's book offers an intimate insight into a unique and dignified culture.

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