Mandala Sand Painting

So this week, we were sent out to do color correction. So we went out into an artificial lighting situation and tried to match our strobes to the color of the lighting. I chose to correct the color temperature in camera by changing the white balance to the correct preset. In the case of my final select, that would be tungsten. From there, we could tweak the color in Photoshop. Also, we had to make a print, which wasn't half as bad as last semester now that the monitor and the printer are calibrated.I knew immediately that for one of the shoots I wanted to photograph the mandala sand painting going on here at MU. It's such an interesting and highly symb

olic tradition. I'll let the caption tell the rest. Here's the photo:

Tibetian monk Yeshe of the Drepung Loseling Monestary forms lotus petals on a mandala in the middle of Ellis Library located on the University of Missouri campus on Oct. 28, 2009. Tibetan Buddhist monks have practiced this tradition for centuries. Working in a team to draw the mandala with colored sand, the monk uses a specialized funnel, or chak-pur, with notches that, when rubbed with a stick, cause vibrations that cause the sand to flow smoothly out of the funnel. All mandalas have a spiritual significance; this particular one signifies the monastery’s mission of compassion. During the closing ceremony, the mandala is destroyed to represent the impermanence of the material world.

And the horribly illustrated lighting diagram:

This was a cool subject to shoot, but it was hard to get a clean background in the library. Also, I think I spent an extra hour there waiting for the monks to take a break so I could get their names and some caption info. I'm pretty happy over all, though I could have used a slightly higher shutter speed for this shoot.