P#9: Capturing The Essence of Prayer Wheels In a Photograph

Prayer In Motion

The picture of the prayer wheels has a story behind it. On our trip to Bhutan, we visited a lot of monasteries because the culture is Buddhist. They are very proud of their Buddhist background. All of the cultural history of their country is really tied up in the story of Buddhism. It's really special.

Every place I went, I photographed the prayer wheels at every temple. I started thinking, "These are all just going to look the same after a while. It's just a bunch of prayer wheels. What can I do differently?" When I asked myself that, what came up was, "Photograph them when they're moving."

I played around with it. I have others where they're all moving. In this one, you can see just one of them is moving.

I felt like that really made the picture different because you can see what these are. You can see the lettering on the ones that are not spinning and then there's the one that is. That just brought the picture up a notch for me from being totally static and frozen in time to feeling like someone might have just spun that one wheel as they walked by.

Audri Lanford: The patterns are just fascinating as well.

Brenda Tharp: The architectural detail -- I would need hours to tell you how magnificent it was! Just the fact that all you see here is hand-painted, that people are commissioned to paint the temples, to paint your home. It is an honor to have that painting. It is all a part of their culture. It is really very special and beautiful to photograph.

To sum up

Many photographers shy away from movement, thinking it's an enemy to still camera shots. Brenda's photograph of these prayer wheels tell a completely different story, proving that movement does indeed have its beautiful place in the world of still shots.