Information on F. Scott Schafer is certainly not all over the place. He was born in Key West in Florida, after spending much of his adolescence sneaking his camera into local heavy metal shows and photographing friend’s bands, a career in photography came calling.
After graduating from the Art Centre College of Design in Pasadena, with a degree in Photography, Scott has been working for editorial and advertising clients ever since. It also appears he's into surfing, snowboarding, scuba diving and trekking up Everest....activities which are somewhat contradictory to his serene Travel portfolio on his website. Unfortunately, he has chosen not to provide any captions to these magnificently toned portraits...but they're from India (Pushkar and Punjab), Bhutan or Ladakh, probably Nepal and Tibet, Myanmar, Cambodia and possibly Viet Nam. These portraits are all posed, and are ageless...similar to ancient studio portraiture style and are visually compelling.
By all accounts, Schafer's commercial photography is very successful, but it is this Travel gallery on his website that attracted my attention and admiration. To me, the above image of the monk and a novice is just perfect...the poses are both very well calibrated. The older monk's tilt of the head, and his facial expression is one of puzzlement (the "what on earth is this foreign photographer up to" kind of look), while the novice's expression is one of acceptance and wonder...and are they in a temple's alcove?
Here's F. Scott Schafer's website , where you can see his Travel gallery amongst other of his galleries.
