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FROM ON HIGH PHOTOGRAPHS BY VIKAS VASUDEV
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FROM ON HIGH PORTRAITS FROM ZANSKAR
PHOTOGRAPHS BY VIKAS VASUDEV
L
ast year, Vikas Vasudev went trekking in Zanskar, a region in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir. He headed towards Turtuk, a remote village near the Pakistan border. Though he had walked for several days, he hadn’t managed to take a single photograph he liked—until he arrived in the picturesque settlement, with its backdrop of green mountains and valleys overgrown with grass. Apparently, the local mullah had banned the village’s women from being photographed by visitors. But a pair of mischievous and daring young women came up to Vasudev and asked him to take their picture. They led him some way away, to a field where they felt safe. The girls stood waist-deep in high grass, which glistened in the sun. As Vasudev hurriedly framed his shot, they spotted someone approaching and, in about 15 seconds, they were gone. Thrilled by the resulting photograph, Vasudev took many more on his return journey through Zanskar. Vasudev lives in Mumbai and specialises in portraiture, and has travelled in or near Ladakh in every one of the last five years. In his photographs from Zanskar, mountains run across almost every shot, framing the subjects who occupy their centre. With their rich colours and dark shadows, Vasudev’s images look like hyper-real paintings of people taking a moment out of their daily routine to pose. Zanskar is sparsely populated, but increasingly popular with tourists, who are drawn to the area in part by its photographic appeal. Compared to the snapshots taken by most visitors, Vasudev’s portraits have a sense of timelessness that sets them apart.
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