Philip Lee Harvey

Travel - a young monk boy in traditional dress, ladakh, india.

What’s the story behind this image?

I took it back in 1998 in the Indian Himalayas. It was a self-funded trip to shoot the Festival of the Sun in a town called Ladakh. There’s a monastery there called Lamayury, and I found this young monk, who was in traditional dress. I grabbed my camera and managed to get three frames of him, and then he left, and I didn’t see him after that. I’ve no idea what his name was or how old he was, and he’s probably never seen this shot, which is a shame. This was one of those fortunate moments where I happened to be in the right place at the right time. Two minutes later, and I would have missed it. Back then, most photographers would have used a Polaroid first and taken meter readings. I didn’t do either, so I had to guess at the exposure. I was always pretty good at getting it to within a stop.

Was there a language barrier?