A photo of a 7-year-old ethnic Kyrgyz girl from Afghanistan taken by Matthieu Paley has appeared in @natgeobook.
“I am very happy to be part of a new book produced by @natgeobook of the most popular Instagram photos on the @natgeo feed,” notes Matthieu Paley. “Here is one of my images featured in that book. It was shot in winter in Afghanistan’s Pamir mountains. Marbet, a 7-year-old ethnic Kyrgyz girl just returned from gathering her yak herd. She sat in front of me, the evening light from a nearby window was falling softly on her face. Her cheeks were red from the bitter cold. I shot this image using film and a medium format camera, a way of photographing that requires a slow pace. I had to wait two weeks (the time it took me to return home), before I could see that image and share it. It’s fascinating how the result of an analog process can end up in a book about an “instant" social media tool that wouldn’t have existed without the digital revolution…”
Afghanistan’s Kyrgyz nomads survive in one of the most remote, high-altitude landscapes on Earth. Members of Afghanistan’s tiny Kyrgyz community live primarily in two settlements, known as Little Pamir and Big Pamir (separated by a three-day trek on horseback), in northern Badakhshan Province.
