Photographing Buddha 2

Photographing Buddha 2
Originally uploaded by Bill Bevan

Don’t make the Buddha look like Mussolini!

It is easy to photograph Buddha statues from below given how large many of them are. Some are 15 metres or more high and tower over you forcing you to point your camera upwards to take a shot.

This can sometimes be a bad thing because when taken in three-quarters view it emphasises the chin, making this appear larger in proportion to the eyes. Not only is this not a very graceful image of the Buddha to present but it was also the pose Mussolini ordered all of his portraits to be taken from. He thought it made him look more powerful, a leader in charge of his country’s destiny. In fact it tends to make people look like dumb self-important losers, probably because of the association with Mussolini who was thoroughly unpleasant to look at as well as a despotic murderer. This is not how we perceive the Buddha.