Lobsang Wangyal
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Lobsang Wangyal | |
|---|---|
 Lobsang Wangyal, 2006 | |
| Born | 1970 (age 55–56) |
| Education | BA 1995, Shimla, Himachal Pradesh |
| Occupations | Photojournalist, Events producer, Web producer |
| Website | lobsangwangyal |
Lobsang Wangyal (born 1970) is a writer, social activist, photojournalist, and events producer, based in McLeod Ganj, Dharamshala, India.[1] He has been a stringer reporter and photographer for Agence France-Presse for many years.
Through his eponymous company, Lobsang Wangyal Productions, he has been producing Tibetan cultural events since 2000, the best-known of which is the yearly Miss Tibet Pageant. He also maintains a news website, Tibet Sun, beginning in 2008.[2]
He is considered an icon in Tibetan exile popular culture.[1]
Lobsang was born in 1970 in Orissa in east India, in a small Tibetan refugee village. His father, Tsering Tendhar (late), was from Kham (Tehor), in eastern Tibet and his mother, Tsering Dolkar, from southern Tibet. They were in their teens when they escaped the Chinese suppression of an uprising in their country in 1959.
He was graduated from Central School for Tibetans, Mussoorie, and attended college in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, for his BA degree, which he obtained in 1995. He has been working as a photojournalist since 1994.[3]
He was a founding member of the Association of Tibetan Journalists in 1997, and was president of the organisation for two terms, from 2004 to 2009.[4][5]
He became a producer in 2000 with the Free Spirit Festival,[6] and produced the first Miss Tibet Pageant in 2002. He has gone on to produce more events, mostly in McLeod Ganj, and a film festival in Hawaii. His productions are mostly funded by himself through his photojournalism. He reached a high point in his career as a showman when he produced a show for Prince Charles in October 2003.[3]
He is in addition a dancer, graphics designer, and website producer.[3]
Photographer and journalist
Lobsang has been working as a photojournalist since 1994.[3] Except for a crash course in journalism, he is self-taught in both this field and photography. He was taught photography by friends and visitors in McLeod Ganj, and went on to make news photography his day job, with many unattributed photos in stories for Agence France-Presse. His photos appear in the books Little Lhasa: Reflections on Exiled Tibet, by Tsering Namgyal,[1] and Tibet in Exile, published by Friedrich Naumann Stiftung in 2002, as well as "Beyond Shangri-La" in the "Five Candles Photography Exhibition" in 2000 in the Prince of Wales Museum, India.[7] Lobsang Wangyal photography is also on the web at LobsangWangyal.com Photography,[8] in various news stories at TibetSun.com, and unattributed in AFP stories.