Richard K. Diran

was born in San Francisco in 1949, trained as an artist at Walt Disney's
California Institute of Art and spent several years as a
painter in Japan where he gained a black belt in karate and
met his Japanese wife Junko. He returned to the States to
attend the Gemological Institute of America and began to
travel extensively in Thailand and Burma to buy rubies and
sapphires.
It was while travel ling in the more remote areas of Burma
in the early 1980's that his interest was aroused in the
different tribes of the region and he started his
photographic record. Moving to Rangoon and subsequently
Bangkok, where he and his wife currently live, he has
continued to deal in precious stones and pursue his quest to
photograph all the known tribal groups of Burma.
In 1997 and again in 2000, Diran's book, "The Vanishing
Tribes of Burma" was published and launched at the United
Nations in London for "The Decade of the World's Indigenous
Peoples". Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Su Kyi wrote a
letter to him while under house arrest in praise of his book.