Being
the subject of documentaries runs in the Vreeland family. Celebrated Vogue editor Diana Vreeland’s career was
chronicled in her own doc, Diana
Vreeland: the Eye has to Travel and she logically played a part in films by
Bruce Weber and about Bert Stern. Through her influence, her photographer
grandson Nicholas apprenticed with Richard Avedon and Irving Penn, but instead
of following in her footsteps, he charted his own course as a Tibetan Buddhist
monk. Vreeland’s life and complicated relationship to the worldly discipline of
photography are explored in Guido Santi & Tina Mascara’s Monk with a Camera (trailer here), which opens this
Friday in New York.
Typically,
young men of Vreeland’s background either become playboys or elite public
servants, like his ambassador father. He was well along his way to the former, considerably
aided by his precocious talent for photography. Meeting models was never a
problem for him, but a chance introduction to Khyongla Rato Rinpoche changed
his life. Through the spiritual
instruction of his lifelong teacher, Vreeland found the meaning he had been
seeking.
Although
the Tibetan exile initially discouraged him from taking robes, Vreeland’s
calling would not be denied. It helped when his cameras were stolen, thereby eliminating
such distracting influences. However, his brother gave him a replacement as a
going away gift, should inspiration later strike him. Years later, necessity
would serve that function while spearheading a relatively ambitious fundraising
drive to expand the growing Rato Monastery, his teacher’s former home. As a
Vreeland, he still had plenty of well-healed contacts, but the financial crisis
threw a spanner in the works. However, sales of his striking photographs
successfully covered the sudden shortfalls. Such resourcefulness even impressed
His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama.
There
are plenty of lessons to learn from Vreeland’s story, starting with the obvious
inclusiveness of Tibetan Buddhism. While he might have engendered
understandable skepticism when formally beginning his journey, clearly no
racial resentment or class warfare prejudices hampered his acceptance in the cloistered
community. It also suggests art can serve sacred causes as well as worldly
desires. Indeed, his work shows a keenly humane eye for the bustling
hardscrabble life around the monastery and throughout India.
