Capturing people in the private act of worship is the mostosensitive and difficult aspect oforeligious photography. Quite the opposite of celebrity photography where the subject generally wants to be seen, a person in communication with their `higher power`wishes
to be left in peace.
The World Religions Photo Library located near London's historic Westminster Abbey focuses on what I like to call `living religions`. Pictures of churches, mosques and temples are two a penny and while we do stock places of worship, our images more particularly depict people practising the various rites performed during their earthly life: a Muslim father whispering the `declaration of faith` in his newborn baby's ear; a Hindu child's first hair-cut and so on through all the various rites of passage - baptism, circumcision, marriage, birth and the obsequies surrounding death.
Historic sites which during centuries have become places of pilgrimage for millions of believers constitute an equally important part of our stock. The Dhamekh stupa at Sarnath where Buddha gave his first sermon is one of many ancient and sacred places in India. Others are the source of `Mother Ganges` bursting out of the Himalayas near Gangotri, at a height of more than 4000 metres and the ruins of Banbhore in Sind where the Arab general Mohammad ibn al-Qasim introduced Islam to the Sub-Continent in the closing years of the seventh century AD.
As well as sacred pilgrimage sites, the library has a noteworthy collection of Muslim world heritage monuments many of which I photographed while freelancing as a young travel writer in the Middle East during the 1970-80s. And if working in the developing Arab states was difficult enough for a woman on her own, there have been occasionsowhenoreligious photographyohasobeenoequally humiliating.
Having obtained permission to photograph Sunday Mass in Havana Cathedral, I was waiting discreetly behind a pillar when a man and woman photographer team burst in the doors and began blitzing the congregation with their powerful flashlights. ` Puede el persona de al lado de la columna para de hacer fotos puede dejar` (will the person behind the pillar please stop taking photos!) said the priest in the middle of dispensing the holy sacraments. He had assumed it was me and I crept out without taking a single picture.
Combat photography is clearly dangerous, but my personal brush with death occurred when I was wading in ankle deep water off the island of Zanzibar to photograph a Pentecostal baptismal ceremony. Struck by an intense fiery pain in my foot on turning it over I saw a line of pinpricks oozing a trickle of clear fluid. It was a weekend and with the only doctor over in Dar as Salaam, the Zanzibar Dive Centre advised my hotel to cut off a green papaya fruit and to rub it over the wound and then to plunge my foot into the hottest water I could bear.
A week passed before I could wear a shoe and walk properly again but it took me two years of researching marine life in the Indian Ocean to discover that I must have trodden on a tiny highly toxic clam that claims the lives of at least two fishermen a year in the region. Instead of entering my toe, the dart had only scraped it.
But back to religious photography which is by nature complex with the background to a shoot often requiring a great deal of administration. Patience is an asset. One can be told the location of an event only to arrive and discover nothing happening, or that the ceremony was held the week before, or it is now scheduled for the following Sunday, or that as in Cuba, despite authority's blessing, someone will object. Perhaps the worst case of this was experienced by our photographer in Bangalore who set out to photograph a Hindu wedding only to find the poor little bride had committed suicide the night before.
Given the current political climate, people often enquire whether Islam is the most difficult faith to work with, but it is my experience to find that Muslims are largely co-operative once they understand the role played by images in broadening religious knowledge and understanding. Delighted by my interest in their culture, poor Pakistani villagers have helped me to photograph everything from madrassas religious schools to family funerals.
Buddhists and Hindus are generally relaxed about being photographed although the trustees of the Sri Swaminarayan Temple in north London - the biggest Hindu place of worship outside India - have declined all approaches. Just why a building of such beauty and intricate detail should be concealed remains a mystery. Sikhs are very welcoming. At the Gurdwara temple after Sunday service I am always invited to share langar the vegetarian meal eaten after worship. Entry to some churches is costly; Westminster Abbey for example charges £10 admission while Jewish law makes life difficult by forbidding any photography during a service in the synagogue.
We also hear from countless charities wanting free images and while I endeavour to help developing countries, especially schools, the World Religions Photo Library is a specialised business which I have built up during a lifetime's travels and which is now also complimented byoaosmallobandoofoloyal photographers who understand the sensitivities involved.