Talking Pictures

Talking Pictures
Quiet Desperation

Shutterbug Staff  |  Oct 1, 2003

The Photographer's Travel Guide

© 2003, Randy Thompson, All Rights Reserved

Her haunting gaze resonates in my memory like no other image I made while crossing the Tibetan Plateau. The young nomad girl appeared from nowhere, dressed in hardly more than rags against the cold Tibetan wind. She never said a word and I wondered later if she could speak at all. The girl just watched, with a look of quiet desperation, as I took a break from the grueling overland road known as the Friendship Highway. She didn't object when I mentioned that I wanted to take her photograph. She just stood there, alone, very small and vulnerable, while I made my images. Now, when I look at her photograph, I think of how difficult her life must be and that she will be old before her time. My hope is that I see a faint smile on her face. For that may mean her life isn't one of just quiet desperation on the vast and beautiful Tibetan Plateau.
--Randy Thompson
Savannah, Georgia

Technical Information:
Canon Elan IIE, Canon 28-135mm IS, Fuji Provia 100F, in camera flash set at -1 stop exposure for fill flash, aperture and shutter speed not recorded.
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