If you missed San Antonio’s recent Asian Cultural Festival at the Institute of Texan Cultures then you missed a special art event. Artist Graham Toms illustrated Jataka tales as read by storyteller Le Lowry. The event was recorded by editorial photographer and videographer extraordinaire Darren Abate, who also put together a series of time-lapsed photographs.
Jataka tales are folkloric stories and poems, with commentaries, from India regarding the previous births of the Buddha. Many of these morality tales have been adapted into the fables of other cultures.
The time-lapse segment toward the end shows Toms’ illustration of a story about a parrot who impressed the gods by trying to extinguish a raging forest fire with only her tears. Abate’s time lapse photography was done with a Canon EOS 40D and an intervalometer, the video portions were shot with a Canon EOS 5D Mark 2 DSLR.
