Reclining Buddha, Bagan, Myanmar

2019-02-02 by Anshar Photography | 2 Comments

In Myanmar, images of the Buddha were everywhere. Sculpted in stone, carved out of teak, or painted on canvas, there were few spaces not adorned with an image of the Buddha, and often there were multiple images. Some were simple and many others were quite ornate, but in virtually every representation of the Buddha, one thing was the same: the calm, serene countenance of a man deeply at peace.

Monk Praying Inside Ancient Temple with the Reclining Buddha, Bagan, Myanmar
Staged photo, panorama from 3 vertical shots, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/8, shutter speed 1/8, ISO 1600, tripod, 1 led light.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


As my trip progressed, I learned that images of the Buddha have different meanings — that a sitting Buddha and a standing Buddha could have completely different meanings, for example. But it was images of the reclining Buddha that I came to find most fascinating.

At first glance, the reclining Buddha suggests relaxation; the pose is not unlike a person lounging by a pool on a tropical holiday. But the meaning is actually far more profound. The reclining Buddha — a common image anywhere that the faith is prevalent — symbolizes the Buddha in the final moments before his death. Though the exact cause of the Buddha’s death is uncertain, virtually all accounts of his life agree that he was aware that his death was imminent and faced it with a calm acceptance of the impermanence of life.

I learned much about Buddhism during my time in Myanmar, but it was this belief, in particular, that I came to find most comforting. Many of us go through our lives consumed with the fear of death—our own or those of the ones we love. But if Buddhism teaches anything, it is that life is transitory, and that death is not an end, merely a transition. It is nothing to be feared.

One of the things I love the most about travel is how it changes you. Each new place becomes part of us, altering us in ways that may take us years to understand. My travels in Myanmar affected me profoundly, leaving me with a greater appreciation of life but also the awareness that death is simply another part of life, another one of the many transitions we experience in our earthly shell. And because of the people I came to know in Myanmar, my life has been enriched immeasurably.

Posted in Interior Tagged , |

In the Temple, Bagan, Myanmar

2019-01-31 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

While traveling through Myanmar, I was struck repeatedly not only by the intricate beauty of its temples, but by the deep and profound spirituality of the people. The Buddhist faith seems to permeate every aspect of life in Myanmar. In all of my travels, I couldn’t think of another place where religion was so deeply ingrained in its people.

Monk Praying Inside Ancient Temple with the Seated Golden Buddha, Bagan, Myanmar
Staged photo, panorama from 4 vertical shots, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/8, shutter speed 1/10, ISO 1600, tripod, 2 led lights.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


I was particularly impressed Myanmar’s children, many of whom were novice monks. They were barely old enough to read, and already they had dedicated themselves to a life of study, prayer, and meditation. I saw them inside virtually every temple, heads bent in concentration.

Seeing such dedication in such young boys made me reflect on the faith and its history. I was intrigued by the idea of a faith without a god, a belief system that esteems enlightenment above all else. I thought of the faith’s origins with a young man of wealth and privilege, Siddhartha Gautama. Pained by the suffering he witnessed in the world, Gautama abandoned his life of comforts and indulgences for one of poverty and asceticism. Still unfulfilled, he adopted the Middle Way, a life lived between the two extremes, and spent six years of his life searching. Finally, while meditating under a Bodhi tree, Gautama is believed to have achieved enlightenment and began teaching others how to reach this state. His followers called him Buddha, which means “enlightened one.”

The exact dates of the Buddha’s life and death are unknown, as are other crucial details of his life. But that’s no matter. It is the essence rather than the facts of his life that is significant. And I could see it — that devotion to edification, the pursuit of something beyond oneself — reflected in the faces of the young novice monks I encountered. It was one of the most profound experiences of my life.

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Shwesandaw Pagoda in Bagan, Myanmar

2019-01-28 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

Like virtually all travelers to Myanmar, I devoted part of my trip to Bagan, Myanmar’s ancient capital. With more than two thousand temples and monasteries scattered across the countryside, Bagan is one of the country’s most visited destinations and certainly one of its most photographed.

Panorama of Shwesandaw Pagoda at Sunset, Bagan, Myanmar
Panorama from 3 horizontal shots, focal length 48 mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 1/10, ISO 64, tripod.

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One would have to stay in Bagan for weeks or months to even begin to see all of the temples. My time was limited, so I rented an eBike at my hotel and planned to cover as much of the archaeological area — a twenty-six square mile space — as possible, stopping at all of the temples that caught my eye.

Bagan is justifiably popular among tourists. It’s a fanciful landscape of ancient spires and stupas nearly as far as one can see. Though in some respects it was nothing like the silent and still site of Inwa, I again experienced the sense of having stepped into a distant, inscrutable time.

Like many places in Myanmar, Bagan has been struck by earthquakes numerous times over the years, most recently in 2016. The 2016 earthquake damaged hundreds of the city’s temples, many of which are now in various states of repair. Because of the damage to the temples, Bagan has prohibited visitors from climbing to the top, meaning that my photographs would have to be taken on the ground.

Fortunately, the temples of Bagan are beautiful no matter your vantage point. I headed to Shwesandaw Pagoda, which occupies a prominent position in the center of town and is one of Myanmar’s most beloved pilgrimage sites. Shwesandaw means “golden holy hair,” a name given to the temple because it reportedly enshrines hair from the Buddha.

The area is famous for its sunsets, a spectacular sight when the pastel light of a late afternoon falls on hundreds of delicate stupas. I lingered in Bagan until the sun began to move closer to the horizon and then I set about photographing the ancient spire of Shwesandaw. I found myself continually thinking of an old song, “Golden Hair,” by Syd Barrett, founder of Pink Floyd. It was an altogether pleasant way to end my day in Bagan.

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Myint Mo Taung Temple Complex in Inwa, Myanmar

2019-01-24 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

I continued to wander through the old capital of Inwa. Beyond the crumbling temple complex, it was a landscape of abandoned monasteries, decaying city walls and watchtowers that now looked out over a terrain devoid of humans. There is something endlessly fascinating to me about abandoned places; bereft of people, their stories can only be filled in by imagination and conjecture.

Myint Mo Taung Temple Complex in the Evening, Inwa, Myanmar
Panorama from 5 vertical shots, focal length 24 mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 0.8 seconds, ISO 64, tripod.

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Because of the difficulty of getting there, Inwa was far less touristy than Bagan and some of Myanmar’s other ancient sites. I was alone for most of that day, and there were only a few small huts to indicate that anyone still lived on the island. Inwa is similar to Bagan with dense tropical brush punctuated here and there by an ancient stupa, but the absence of tourists meant that I was free to wander the time-worn capital as I wished, with no one standing in the way of my photographs.

And unlike Bagan, in Inwa, it is still possible to climb to the top of the temples. Many of Inwa’s temples appear to be crumbling and decaying at first glance, but are actually still quite substantial. Excited to see Inwa from a higher vantage point, I found myself, with gear in tow, scurrying to the tops of these ancient structures, eager to look out over the uninhabited countryside.

Hauntingly beautiful from any angle, I found that Inwa was especially lovely when viewed from the top of one of its temples. From there, it was possible to see several of the abandoned temples and a swath of the surrounding countryside, dense with palms and creeping vines. I observed Inwa from my perch until the sun was low on the horizon. Then, happy with the photographs I’d made, I headed back to the ferry for Mandalay.

Posted in City Tagged , |

Ancient Pagodas in Inwa, Myanmar

2019-01-23 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

My travels often take me to places that remind me of the transitory nature of life. I’ve photographed ruins, abandoned castles, empty landscapes where communities once flourished. Time and again, I’m reminded that we are only here for a short while and that even the most powerful empires will one day come to an end.

Ancient Pagoda Complex in the Evening, Inwa, Myanmar
Panorama from 4 vertical shots, focal length 24 mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 1/25, ISO 64, tripod.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


I was reminded of this again in Myanmar when I visited the ancient capital of Inwa. For more than three hundred years between the 14th and 19th centuries, Inwa was the country’s imperial capital. It served as capital far longer even than Bagan, the country’s famous ancient capital. Because of its importance, the grand city was repeatedly attacked, destroyed, and rebuilt.

Inwa is a fascinating, mysterious place. Built on a manmade island between the Irrawaddy and Myitinge Rivers, it is difficult to get to, even today. There are no paved roads leading there, only dirt roads which are treacherous for all but the hardiest of automobiles and drivers. Locals — the brave ones, at least — take motorbikes and enterprising tour guides take visitors on donkey carts, but otherwise, Inwa is largely left alone, a far less visited site than Bagan and some of Myanmar’s other ancient sites.

But I knew from having read about it that I wanted to see it, no matter how I had to get there. I visited twice, once with a driver who was undeterred by the unpaved roads and once by taking the ferry from Sagaing and walking. It was a trip that required some extra effort, but it was well worth it.

Soon after entering Inwa, I found an ancient temple complex, long abandoned and nearly overtaken by vegetation. I felt as if I had entered another world, a forgotten but once splendid place. It was a quiet, still day; the only sounds were my footsteps and the chirps of jungle insects. Once a seat of imperial power, Inwa and its weathered, crumbling stupas were now a monument to the passage of time.

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Teak Wood Interior of Bagaya Monastery, Myanmar

2019-01-22 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

Sometimes Myanmar was deceiving. So much of what I saw in the country was ancient that it was easy to feel that every temple and pagoda had a history going back to the distant past. Much of the country seemed frozen in time, and sometimes I had to remind myself that some places felt much older than they actually were.

Teak Wood Interior of Bagaya Monastery, Inwa, Myanmar
Panorama from 10 vertical shots in 2 rows, additional exposures for highlights, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/8, shutter speed 8 seconds, ISO 250, tripod.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


That was the experience I had at the Bagaya Monastery in the town of Inwa, not far from Mandalay. Though the town itself is one Myanmar’s earliest capitals, the monastery was a newcomer compared to many of the others I’d explored; it looked and felt much older, but the monastery was only built in 1834.

Unlike many of the monasteries that I toured in Myanmar, the Bagaya Monastery was built entirely of teak, including the 267 pillars which supported the building, the largest of which is 60 feet tall and nine feet in diameter. Intricately carved lotus motifs were repeated throughout the building. I wouldn’t have imagined it was possible, but I found it even more splendid than the teak wood monastery in Mandalay.

Bagaya is still a functioning monastery. As I walked through the halls, camera in hand, I realised that in a room to my left, monks were gathered in study. As was often the case when I encountered monks in Myanmar, they were oblivious to me. Focused on their studies, or perhaps in prayer, they seemed completely unaware that anyone else was in the temple. I took my photographs and left quietly, leaving them to the silent rituals of their ancient faith.

Posted in Interior Tagged , |

Fisherman on Taung Tha Man Lake, Myanmar

2019-01-21 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

My excursion onto the lake with the fishermen proved to be one of the most exciting experiences of the trip. During the months that I spent planning the trip, it was the temples and pagodas that most interested me — I was fascinated by their intricate, fantastical architecture and the deeply spiritual nature of the people. And the temples were just as remarkable as I anticipated; each one different than the last, each one ornate and meticulously designed.

Fisherman Throwing Net Early in the Morning, Taung Tha Man Lake, Mandalay, Myanmar
Staged photo, single shot, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/5.6, shutter speed 1/1600, ISO 1250, handheld.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


But I was surprised at the contentment I felt on the water with the fishermen. It was such a simple thing, to spend the day with two men as they went about their daily work. And though the work they did was physically demanding, it was clear that they were in their element. They weren’t stuck in city traffic, or continually checking emails, or answering to an angry manager. I was a little envious of them and began to think that it might be nice to spend my life a few inches above the water’s surface.

They went about their work, and I went about mine. I took hundreds of photographs from every angle, trying to get the perfect combination of light, color, and water. I wanted to capture the delicate choreography of spray against sunlight when the nets hit the water. Out of the hundreds of photos that I took that day, I think this is one of the best. It captures not only the image, but the feeling of pure, simple joy that I experienced on the water.

This photo received following awards:
* MIROC circuit 2019 (4th MIROC Exhibition Edenvale 2019, South Africa) – Gold GPU medal

Posted in Landscape Tagged , |

Taung Tha Man Lake in the Morning, Myanmar

2019-01-20 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

Mornings in Myanmar are sublime. Many of the country’s days pass in a haze of rain and sweltering heat, making the clear, temperate mornings feel like a gift. Like the locals, I found myself rising early, not wanting to sleep in and miss even a few minutes of the early morning and its gentle sunlight.

Fisherman Throwing Net Early in the Morning, Taung Tha Man Lake, Mandalay, Myanmar
Staged photo, single shot, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/2.8, shutter speed 1/1250, ISO 3200, handheld.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


The fishermen on Taung Tha Man Lake get out early as well, guiding their long, slender boats out onto the still water as the locals on shore are just beginning to stir. The lake, generally placid at any time of day, is especially beautiful in the morning, when the sky is reflected perfectly on its surface.

Unlike the fishermen I encountered at Lake Inle, the men at Taung Tha Man Lake are not merely fishing for the entertainment of camera-wielding tourists; fishing is their livelihood. They may oblige a tourist here and there with a photograph, but the work they are doing is real work. It’s also arduous. Their nets — heavy with lead weights — are flung into the air. They meet the water’s surface fully expanded, sending a gentle spray of water into the sunlight.

I made arrangements to go out onto the lake early one morning with two fishermen. That first morning was mostly a learning experience — after I got over my amazement at their strength and agility I found it was much harder to photograph them at work than I had anticipated. I wanted to capture the net in flight, but it required a very fast shutter speed in a low amount of light. My first day on the water was largely spent learning how to photograph them, with few of the photographs worth keeping.

I went back with them the next morning. The weather was even more agreeable than the morning before, with the colors of the sky and the sunrise reflected beautifully in the water’s surface. I was engrossed in what I was doing and the morning passed quickly, and before I knew it, the fishermen were leading the boats back to shore to sell that day’s catch.

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Mya Thein Tan Pagoda in Mingun, Myanmar

2019-01-19 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

I wandered through and around the unfinished pagoda until late in the afternoon, then remembered that locals had advised me that there was another pagoda nearby that I should see. A short walk away from the ruins of the pagoda was another temple, far more intricate than any I had seen on my trip.

Mya Thein Tan Pagoda in the Evening, Mingun, Myanmar
Panorama from 4 vertical shots, additional exposures for highlights, focal length 21 mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 1/6, ISO 64, tripod.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


The Mya Thein Tan Pagoda is striking — it was truly one of the most beautiful structures I saw in Myanmar. It’s a remarkable pagoda constructed entirely in white, giving it the appearance of a fanciful wedding cake. I learned that the pagoda was built by Bagydaw, the heir of King Bodawpaya, whose enormous ruin sat nearby on the banks of the river. But Bodawpaya’s great, unfinished pagoda was a monument to pride; Bagydaw’s temple had a more noble inspiration.

Construction on the pagoda began in 1816, shortly after the death of Bagydaw’s first wife in childbirth. The temple was a memorial to his young wife and a way for him to show his devotion to her, even in death. To fund the construction of the pagoda — which is so intricately detailed that it can be fully appreciated only by seeing it in person — the king used 100,000 emeralds. It’s from this fact that the pagoda takes its name — Mya (emeralds) Thein Tan (100,000).

Beyond its remarkable detailing, the pagoda is also noteworthy for the seven terraces which lead to the central round stupa. The terraces, it’s believed, are meant to be a tangible representation of Mount Meru, the sacred mountain that is believed to be at the center of the Buddhist cosmos. The seven terraces represent the seven peaks that rise up to Mount Meru, which is represented by the dome at the top.

Myanmar was a dream of mine for a long time before I finally got to go, and I planned the trip carefully, so that I had the best chances for good weather. I gave myself a window of time in between the rainy season and the clean cloudless skies of winter. I was never more grateful for that planning than on this day, as I photographed the Mya Thein Tan Pagoda. The brilliant white of that remarkable structure was particularly stunning against the pink sky of a coming sunset. On my way back to Mandalay I was thinking of two very different men — one who built for pride and another who built for love.

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Pahtodawgyi Pagoda in the Evening, Mingun

2019-01-18 by Anshar Photography | Comments Off

I returned to the Pahtodawgyi Pagoda later in the day, after most of the ferries had left for Mandalay. It was a hot day, and the tourists largely stayed away from the most popular sites in the heat of the afternoon. With the exception of a few backpackers, I had the enormous ruin to myself.

Unfinished Mingun Pahtodawgyi Pagoda in the Evening, Mingun, Myanmar
Single shot, additional exposures for highlights, focal length 14 mm, aperture f/11, shutter speed 1/20, ISO 64, tripod.

You can buy this photo as Fine Art Print >>


The expansive ruin lords over the Irrawaddy River and even in decay, it’s an impressive sight. Construction of the massive stupa began in 1789 under King Bodawpaya. According to legend, Bodawpaya, a powerful king who often raided neighboring areas, came into possession of important Buddhist relics, including a tooth of the Buddha, an extraordinarily rare find. To house his precious treasure, Bodawpaya arranged for the construction of a stupa that would reach 152 meters high, the largest in Myanmar, if not the world.

Bodawpaya became consumed with the grand project, leaving his son to manage affairs of state. While his son oversaw the government, Bodawpaya built a residence for himself on an island in the river where he could oversee every element of the temple’s construction.

But after only seven years, construction of the massive temple was halted, and the reasons are now lost to history. It could simply be a matter of practicalities — builders may have found it impossible to build the temple to the desired height with the tools of the time. There was also a prophecy at the time that when the temple was completed, the kingdom would come to an end. King Bodawpaya died in 1819, his enormous stupa unfinished, and none of his successors resumed work on the project.

Since that time, earthquakes have caused considerable damage to the temple. One, in 1838, caused the heads of the massive stone lions guarding the entrance to break off and roll into the river. It also caused deep cracks in the temple’s façade, as if it had been cleaved by the hand of an angry god. Somehow, the unfinished state of the temple along with the great cracks made it all the more remarkable and all the more evocative. A king attempted to build the largest temple in the world; in failing, he left a broken monument to hubris and ambition.

Posted in City Tagged , |