Matthieu Paley Photography

Part 6/6 - Letter to Wakhan - the ego and the love

Maybe many of us photographers want to create beautiful pictures because if you make something beautiful then maybe you are a bit beautiful too?? Mmmm, the old ego speaking. And you might dig deep for that feeling of being beautiful, it can be a good driving force. All the digging can lead you to explore different photographic languages. You might even dare to try and write poetry with that photographic language. You forget about grammar, you play with the edges of composition. Success, failures. You pull that thread to see what comes out.
And if the connection to the place is right and honest you will return obsessively because it has become your place of poetry. And I think for me it is these mountains with such evocative names.
Almost 3 decades of returning. When I return, I know I will be impressed, intrigued by what I see. I am also looking for that bridge, this dance of mutual recognition, this vibration between worlds that honour differences. Each visit becomes a dialogue, a mirror in which I am changed simply by being seen, and the place is changed by my presence. I see you, you see me.
And so it can’t stop, won’t stop. And ultimately, in these intimate moments, it is love, simply love that calls me back again and again. I am just an addict for it.

In a fast world, this is a series that came from walking slow, a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio

Thanks to Jamie for the editing love Jamie wellford and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!

Post 5/6 — Love letter to Wakhan - the spirits

Outside, in the depth of lonely valleys, the massiveness of these mountains has created many tales. I mean of course fairies… Of course supernatural beings created out of smokeless fire, of feared Vagd and Birgooch, this creature with a hole instead of a stomach.
And all these spiritual movements that crossed this part of the world, they are all visible here if you know how to look: nature worshipping, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism… and more recently Islam. I love sitting at “Astane” these ancient shrines covered in mysterious woods, these threshold between worlds, the visible and the unseen.

1st picture: a Wakhi girl holds the stuffed co**se of a baby yak, called “nöriz” in Wakhi. Do any of my Wakhi friends heard that word before? The scent keeps the mother lactating so the mother yak keeps giving milk. At a high altitude settlement in the afghan pamir.

In a fast world, this is series that came from walking slow, a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio

Thanks to Jamie for the editing love Jamie wellford and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!

Part 4/6 - Love letter to Wakhan - intimacy

As a photographer, I thrive to be part of intimate moments. I don’t like to force myself in situations… it will take the time it needs! Hence the focus on long term project, returning again and again, learning the body language, saying the right words etc. I just don’t like to feel separated…

To be a witness but also to be a part, to step out briefly then come back closer for warmth, that’s a type of dance.

About the second picture: At the veil ceremony, 15-year-old Ikhbal will exchange her childhood’s red veil for a white veil showing that she is now married. She cries as older relatives prepare to attach the new veil to her head. Afghan kyrgyz community, Little Pamir. 2012

In a fast world, this is a series that came from walking slow, a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio

Thanks to Jamie wellford for the editing love and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!

Post 3/6 Love letter to Wakhan - “Xik”, the language.

Language eventually played a crucial role in my falling in love. I didn’t “learn” Wakhi, it just happened over time. And speaking the language slowly changed everything. Laughter appeared, lots of it. Language creates proximity, I can dance more, I can shake off the possible misunderstandings. I have a camera… but mostly I am responding, answering, being answered. I have been told I am a chatter box. It’s because I love that music of the Wakhi language, it gets me excited, keeps a bit of my hyperactivity in check…
But even with the command of the language, I never felt fully at ease and that, I think, is a good thing. A slight insecurity remains. How far can I really go? I think working on this is another reason I return… That vulnerability after all is an opening, people sense it. No one really trust a cocky guy.

In a fast world, this is a series that came from walking slow, a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio

Thanks to Jamie for the editing love Jamie wellford and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!

Part 2/6 — Love letter to Wakhan - the smoke and salt.

Back in the Wakhan, what you will get in abundance is good, honest hardship. Cold, wind, isolation, smoked up mud houses… It was when I crossed Mongolia on foot in 1998 that I first realised the strangest thing: that the hardship from these travels would eventually be converted into some meaningful memories. What sticks is not the struggle but it’s those countless acts of kindness, these gestures and whispers: a bowl of salty milk tea under theatrical light, a hand adjusting a veil against the wind. Indoor, these intimate settings hold moments of fragile beauty. A gaze too long can affect the picture I am desperate to take. I like walking on these eggshells.
In a fast world, this is series that came from walking slow, a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio

Thanks to Jamie for the editing love Jamie wellford and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!

Post 1/6, Love letter to Wakhan - why do I keep going back?

I first walked into the Wakhan Corridor in 2000, from Pakistan. I was all alone up at the Irshad Pass, 5,000 meters, one foot in Afghanistan, the other in Pakistan. I felt intoxicated by a sense of absurd freedom, munching on cold instant noodles. Twenty-plus expeditions later, I’m still chasing that feeling.

This is Said Rahman, 18, last September 2026. He is a shepherd at a high pasture where Wakhi families live in yurts for up to six months a year. Surrounding him: the Pamir, the Hindukush, the Karakoram, the edge of the Himalayan world and beyond, the deserts of Central Asia. 19th century mapmakers in London and St. Petersburg drew this strip of land as a buffer zone. The Wakhan corridor was created around 1894 as a result of the Great Game. They called it a wasteland. They never set foot in it. To me it’s as close as it gets to paradise.

This is series based on a little Love letter that I recently wrote about my relationship to the Wakhan in Afghanistan published on National Geographic. 26 years since I go there. “A photographer walks the roof of the world”. See Link in Bio
Thanks to Jamie for the editing love Jamie wellford and to National Geographic Society for supporting my work on the people that walk the world!