“A person’s navel is on his belly while the world’s navel is on the Pamirs”.

December 19, 2009 12:02 PM

Matthieu Paley is an award winning photographer who for the last ten years has been working mainly in the Western Himalaya especially the the Pamirs, Wakhan Corridor, Tajikistan and Kyrgystan.( The site takes a little time to load but is well worth the wait.
posted by adamvasco (14 comments total)

Wow, thanks for posting this. Beautiful photographs.
posted by Lobster Garden at 12:39 PM on December 19, 2009

Wow, these photographs are really amazing. Thanks for sharing.
posted by pulled_levers at 12:40 PM on December 19, 2009

Seriously great work - while it might be easy to make a dramatic photo in Afghanistan, these are done with skill under difficult conditions. Great find!

(though the site is terrible - those images really need to be fullscreen)
posted by infinitefloatingbrains at 12:52 PM on December 19, 2009

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posted by scrowdid at 1:11 PM on December 19, 2009

Just started going through these and wanted to pop in to the thread to say thanks, these are great, adamvasco.
posted by madamjujujive at 1:22 PM on December 19, 2009

Amazing. Just that.
posted by Ella Fynoe at 3:20 PM on December 19, 2009

Photo number 25 in the "Kashmir at peace" series is a man with an absrdly long rifle. What is that, some sort of ultra-long-range sniper rifle? Kashmiri novelty gun?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 3:30 PM on December 19, 2009

Joakim Ziegler, if you look to the left of the imagine you're currently looking at you'll see an icon that has an 'I' on it. Hit it, might take a few times; it's an info option that display information about the image.
posted by ZaneJ. at 3:34 PM on December 19, 2009

I mean the right.
posted by ZaneJ. at 3:34 PM on December 19, 2009

Amazing photos. The closest I ever got to this region was Tashkurgan and the Chinese side of the Sino-Pakistani border. Wish I had the balls of this guy to venture over to the Afghan side. Thanks for posting this.
posted by pravit at 3:40 PM on December 19, 2009

WOW! What a contrast between the mountains and island photos.
posted by Jumpin Jack Flash at 4:00 PM on December 19, 2009

Whew, just got back on my flying carpet from this great tour. Amazing photos.
posted by bearwife at 7:03 PM on December 19, 2009

Putting the 'oomph' into omphalos. Great link, adamvasco.
posted by Abiezer at 10:35 PM on December 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

Wow, those are really, really, really great. Thank you for posting.
posted by Magnakai at 3:26 AM on December 20, 2009