UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY
In a far-off corner of Central Asia, as far from an ocean as one can get, lies the Kyrgyz Republic, a little-known Silk Road nation about the size of Nebraska. My wife, Lena, was born and raised in this former Soviet republic, also known as Kyrgizia or Kyrgyzstan, and the childhood stories she shared with me conjured visions of a post-communist Shangri-La, surely too good to be true.
In summer of 2015, we set aside a few weeks to explore her homeland together so I could see for myself. What I found was a landscape photographer’s dream, and I quickly came to realize what an undiscovered marvel Kyrgyzstan is and what a precious set of opportunities it offers the adventurous photographer who seeks to make new discoveries and apply their personal creative vision to the crafting of original works. One doesn’t go to Kyrgyzstan to knock off familiar compositions of those who have gone before. We go there to explore and have a great time in one of the world’s most unknown, unappreciated and untrammeled sublime landscapes.
The more people travel and photograph, the smaller and more familiar our planet seems to become. It’s hard to imagine keen landscape photographers making their first trip to heavily photographed destinations like the Grand Teton, Yosemite or Torres del Paine without referring at least subconsciously to the many iconic photographs they have seen from those locations. One of our challenges today is to find
