AM I REAL OR FAKE?

Is this a real photo?

Rejected

Shortlisted but rejected

Rejected

Rejected

Accepted but needed a little retouching
.

Today I received a letter from someone who had bought my novel Pantau in India. She wanted to know whether everything in the book is true and whether the photo used for the front cover was real.

Errrrrrr.

I have had a few similar letters over the past years, and I was even asked on live radio and during television interviews whether the information I provided in my autobiography was real or true.

Errrrrr.

Regarding the photo. I don’t really understand why people think the photo is not real. I asked them about it.

“Well, it looks as if you have been cut out of another photo and placed among a bunch of Tibetan monks.

“O”.

So, it appears that I am not really sitting for real among those monks eh?

Let me enlighten you. The photo is real. It was taken by Angus MacDonald, a Dharamsala photographer. The concept of the photo and book cover was mine. I thought it would make a lovely cover if I would sit among a bunch of maroon clad monks. I intended to ask some monk friends to pose for the photo and be very Streisand about the light and composition, but there was a teaching going on at the Dalai Lama temple and there was no need for posing and the light available was natural. I just sat down on the floor surrounded by monks while Angus hovered around me with his camera taking about 300 pictures of which 299 were rejected. The monks knew me and I just told them “Keep praying and listening to the Dalai, Angus is taking a photo for a book cover.

So here are some rejected photos of the same photo shoot. I must say that the photo that got shortlisted was a little retouched as I had some nasty shadow on my face and I asked the photoshopper, a nice Japanese girl, to get rid of the rings under my eyes as well. As for the rest, the photo is real as you can see for yourself.