23 May 2008, Tibetan Olympics Long Distance Run, B'n'W Portraits

These are photos taken on black and white film at the long Distance Runhat. Most of them are portraits of the athletes just after the finish of the race. And some of them are close-up portraits. Not all of them are photos that i would normally post here, the reason i do is because i hope the athletes and people that i took photos of (some of them i managed to connect to) will get to see them. In the future i will take some of these pictures off. But at the moment i want to describe how i started taking those portraits. I've been allready 3 days in the event, each day finishing late at night, after i had worked in the local internet cafe, editing the photos and sending them to, my photo agency (at the moment). The morning of the race i got a mail from my agency saying not to hurry to send them pictures because not even one picture were published by any newspaper. The country were Olympics were born were to busy doing business with China, that just ignored that this event ever happened. I went to the race with a mixed feeling of dissapointment, frustration and anger. Well, when you have a feeling like that, one of the best places to be is in Dalai Lama's temple among Tibetans. I mean, this feeling after it was experienced, it was free to leave and its place took the spark of creativity. I came to me to try to take close-up portraits of the athletes soon after their finish. Know, you difficulties when turning a camera to somebody and in the past i was giving up to them often. Imagine how difficult would be to turn a camera with a 24mm lense a few centimeters from the face. Well, at the moment i guess i thought that it would be another aspect of the event i was photographing. One that would make the photo story which i was planning to sell to magazines back home, more enriched with interesting views. Turned out that no magazine published my story when i got back. But without me knowing it i had just started a project with close-up portraits, which is now interweaving with most if not all the projects i do. And it's not even about the project. It's about that this day i found a way, one of the ways, to connect, or at least to honestly try, with people and with myself. And from this day, my photographic experience has change and enriched a lot. Thank you.