Every river has a bank,

Every culture a geography.

In times of floods, the banks of rivers are breached, creating an uncontrollable flow of water but it soon falls back to it’s course. Similarly, in the past, there was a limit to how much a civilization could expand beyond it’s natural domain.

In the last century, a flood of scientific advancements have breached the banks of environment, making it possible for man to be present anywhere on the earth in a short period of time. Movement of people across boundaries, while exposes us to a sense of appreciation for other cultures but it has also created an irreparable environmental breach. We seem to be at a point of no return.

As a photographer, aspiring to lay my feet in the remotest parts of the world, I see myself as being equally responsible for this phenomenon.

At Tso Moriri, a salt water lake at the height of 15,075 feet in North East of Indian Himalayan state of Ladakh, close to the China borer, live a group of semi-nomadic Tibetan tribe, called the Changpas. They are high altitude pastoralists, raising goats and yaks. In the past, they roamed freely from Ladakh to Lhasa but with border issues between India and China, today some of them are trapped around Tso Moriri lake.

During a visit to the lake, I photographed the Changpa children. Living at high altitudes, their skin conditions are a small indication of the environmental harshness under which these kids live with very little contact with modern world.

Click first photo below and scroll to view series in slide show.