Manuel Bauer has been documenting the life of the 14th Dalai Lama since 1990, and was the only photographer to date to accompany Tibetans on their perilous escape across the Himalayas in 1995. With Dalai Lama: Photographs by Manuel Bauer 1990–2024, the Swiss photographer captures His Holiness The Fourteenth Dalai Lama’s presence in atmospheric images taken on his numerous trips abroad, at his many public engagements, and in the privacy of his own home in northern India. Here is a candid interview we recently conducted with him.
1. When did you know you wanted to be a photographer?
At 15 years old. My father was a freelance graphic designer, illustrator and artist. At lunch, my father would occasionally tell my mother that he had received a lucrative commission, perhaps from a nuclear power plant or from industry, but had declined it for ethical reasons. The freedom to decide for himself and his principles shaped me. I wanted to live my life responsibly as well. Since I wasn’t good at drawing, I decided to become a photographer.
2. Which is your favourite camera?
Today cameras are at such a high level that the quality differences between leading manufacturers are negligible to me. All are good. What’s more important is being able to operate a camera very well and in your sleep. That takes practice. And so I’ve stayed with the same manufacturer from the beginning. My first camera was a Nikon F2, which was in 1983. And I’ve stayed with Nikon to this day.
3. What would be your most memorable shoot?
The memories of my 1995 reportage ‘Escape from Tibet’ are still imprinted emotional. When you’ve witnessed how a people suffers so much under the repressions of an occupying power, how a family is torn apart by it, a father puts himself and his little daughter in mortal danger, fleeing over the highest mountain range in the world to escape oppression – that never leaves you. Our chances of survival weren’t very high.
4. Which is your favourite photograph from this book?
It is not possible to portray a personality like the Dalai Lama with all his multi-layered qualities in a single photograph. But I think the most essential image is the last one in the book – a very simple photo. It’s not about the personal style of a photographer, it’s only about the Dalai Lama. It’s no longer about surfaces, only about his innermost self, his deep inner processes during meditation. His ability, thanks to lifelong training, to recognize his emotions, and if negative transform them into positive ones, and focus his attention exclusively on the most important thing: compassion.
5. What does the Dalai Lama mean to you?
The Dalai Lama shows us that with the right decision, it is possible in one lifetime to become an almost perfect, authentic, loving human being, free from negative emotions, intentions and actions.
6. What is your greatest extravagance?
Hiking in the Alps. Sometimes scuba diving as a great retreat from the tingle-tangle of daily life and into the unbelievable beauty of our nature. I hope we kill it not all.
7. What would be your dream assignment?
The story that saves our planet.
8. Who are your favourite writers?
The book The Human Stain by Philip Roth impressed me. Then the precise language of Peter Stamm. And Christian Schmidt with his journalistic ethics, his sense of justice, honesty and humanity. I was very fortunate and had the privilege of being able to work with him for 35 years.
9. Who are your favourite photographers?
Those from the tradition of ‘concerned photojournalism’ like Eugene W. Smith. But I have also learned a lot from colleagues my age like Thomas Kern. Today, I admire young ones like Johanna Maria Fritz, who still believe in our profession and commit themselves with full dedication and everything they have through their images for a more just world.
10. How would you like to die?
In peace – in a peaceful world.
Dalai Lama: Photographs by Manuel Bauer 1990–2024
