Victims of fashion

The slight frame and gaunt features wouldn't look amiss in the pages of The Face. But his gaze is more bemused than disaffected - as if the young Buddhist monk is really not sure why he's being stage managed for a shoot against a crushed paper backdrop. It gets him out of morning meditations, though, and he's sure the nice lady has her reasons.

Indeed she does. Fashion photographer Sheila Rock must have thought all her ships had come in when she stumbled across the high cheekbones and middledistance gazes of the Sera Jey monks. Her black-and-white portraits - single figures wreathed in robes - are of the monastic group who fled Tibet in 1959 following the uprising against China's occupation.

The monks set up their esoteric enclave in neighbouring Mysore, and it is here, amid the chaos of that Indian city, that Rock first chronicled them in 1998.

These 20 or so portraits, taken a year later and displayed in the print sales section of the Photographers' Gallery, are definitely informed by fashion photography rather than social documentary. Rituals and sacred ceremonies seem almost incidental as, for her best shots, Rock teases young monks out of context, gets them to stand apart and flourish their robes in fluid, motion-blurred movement for her camera.

The resulting portraits, in large, painterly duotones, are breathtaking - and the silver gelatin print process infuses them with a weighty, smoky depth. The monks must have wondered about her motives as they swirled, span and pouted, but the stage management is worth it.

Until Apr 17, The Photographers' Gallery, 5 Newport Street WC2, Tue to Sat 11am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7831 1772. www.photonet.org.uk Tube: Leicester Square