Prayer In The Year of The Pig

• Photographer
  Eric Seidner

A devotee prays before a statue of the Goddess Guanyin in the XiChan temple on the first day of the Year of the Pig. Because this is the Chinese zodiac sign of my wife’s birth year, the coincidence is seen as inauspicious. We had to visit temple to ward off bad luck. I saw these devotees and positioned myself between statue and fire hoping to focus on an individual who epitomized the moment from amongst the chaos.