Opening on November 10th at Apple HQ in Hanover Street, London.

Bhutan – The Last Kingdom is a retrospective of Colin’s work in Bhutan since 1997. Unfortunately the exhibition is not on public display and has been created for Apple employees only. In association with KE adventure travel, Colin is running a trip to Bhutan again in 2010 and if you’re interested in joining him there, more information can be found on the KE Adventure Travel website.

Kunzang Djorie, Nemalung Tsechu

During a lull in the performances, this rather coy boy performed for the camera and I captured this mischievous look before he vanished with his father. I returned to the festival five years later with my daughter Alexandra then 10 and I had taken with me a giant enlargement of Kunzang. All day I looked for him and his father, who was well built man, but could see no sign of them. Just before we left, my guide unveiled the enlargement to the some of the local kids who identified Kunzang immediately from the picture. Within minutes his sister had turned up to claim the picture on his behalf and on our departure, our guide arranged for my daughter and myself to meet Kunzang at the local school.

The Seeds of Life, Phobjikha Valley

In the Phobjikha Valley, I met a farmer winnowing buckwheat in the wind – the method used since farming began. His hands were what attracted me initially – they were ‘hands of the earth’ – hands rarely seen now in the west, by the mechanisation of agriculture. Under his fingernails was earth and I had an image in my mind’s eye, which I must confess wasn’t this one, but as I asked him to scoop up some buckwheat the shot evolved into something else, something more symbolic which I liked more. It is an image of man’s struggle to feed himself, and lest we forget, all the more poignant as the world population is expected to increase by 2.6 billion over the next 45 years, from 6.5 billion today to 9.1 billion in 2050.

An Annual Pilgrimage, Phobjikha Valley

Whilst photographing a traditional farmhouse on the Phobjikha Valley, I picked up something in my peripheral vision, which at first glance looked like buffalo moving about the high pasture beneath the prayer flags. On closer inspection, I could see five women, each carrying heavy loads of cut grass and ferns, which they were bringing down to their homesteads to feed cattle during the winter months. I thought about the daily struggle of survival in the valley and the manual labour in which these women were engaged and couldn’t but help see a sardonic irony in their struggle. Probably oblivious to the health benefits of manual labour, these women, don’t belong to a health club, or count calories but simply work and eat organic foods and enjoy an equilibrium in life, which has been engulfed by our largely sedentary lifestyle. As Bhutan moves towards modernisation, there will be a price to be paid in the simplicity that lifestyle.

The Garuda and Serpent, Phobjikha Valley

Suspended on a platform ten metres above the ground, Nim Dorji from Nobding paints an image of the Garuda and Serpent, which symbolises good overcoming evil. Wealthy individuals commissions artists to decorate their homes with images, which include giant phalluses – an image, much used in Bhutan, which symbolises fertility. Nim, now 63 years old has been painting since he was fourteen and is an expert in mixing his own paints and pigments in the traditional Tibetan palette.

Dances of the Heroes, Trashigang Tsechu

Towards the end of the Trashigang Tsechu, the penultimate Dance of the Heroes was enacted – these dancers had been on their feet all day and yet the energy and agility they displayed so late in the afternoon was astonishing. Being at such close proximity to the performers is quite a bizarre experience. Obviously, one is aware that men are dressed up and are wearing wooden masks and yet the mind plays tricks and these ‘entities’ seem real. Whilst we know that the dancers eyes see through the mouth of the mask, your brain will never look there but to the eyes of the mask – each mask and dancer has it’s own personality. I remember at one stage where there was a lull in the performance and the dancers sat in front of me – it was a bit like being a real life character in ‘Alice in Wonderland.’

Window, Kurjey Monastery

There’s something, which I find appealing about this window – I think the combination of the simple geometric shapes and the palette of colours – the muted orange spheres and blue rectangle sitting on a white canvas compliment each other. Photography is always the opposite of painting. In painting we start with a clean canvas and add. With photography we start with the world and subtract – less is more and this image is result of a subtractive thought process.