People

The heart of this project: the people we met along the way, from the Kyrgyz highlands to the old cities of Uzbekistan. Some were at the World Nomad Games, where men came in their best kalpaks and medals. Others came from chance encounters: a driver near Karakol who stopped his UAZ to give us a lift, three girls in Bukhara who struck a pose for us, a baker in the bazaar, stonemasons, silk weavers and a camel herder near the Aral Sea. Most began with a nod, a gesture or a few words in whatever language we could manage.

For more on my approach to taking these photographs, have a look at my Dispatch on street photography in Uzbekistan.