Photographer Elliott Verdier decided to go to Kyrgyzstan simply because he realized he knew nothing about the country. Born and raised in Paris, Verdier became interested in learning more about Central Asia after a visit to Mongolia. “I started doing some research on it and found very little about it,” Verdier says. “So I decided to go for a month to see by myself at first. And then I decided to go back for a longer time and bigger project.”
A Shaded Path is the result of this photographic research. Published this month in photo book form by Another Place Press, the series explores the landscapes and people of Kyrgyzstan with a curious eye. Verdier was particularly interested in getting to know both young and old people, documenting a contrast between the generations who grew up in the Soviet era and those too young to have experienced it.
Verdier chose to shoot the work on film, using a large format camera to capture images that are full of detail. “I like to think that it will be the first and the last time that people will be shot with a large format camera,” he says. A Shaded Path is a document of a small country trying to balance preservation of past traditions with movement into the present.
Find more of Elliot Verdier’s photography at his website. An exhibition of A Shaded Path will also be on view in Paris on June 30.
More photography to see:
A Photographer’s Long Way Home from Tokyo to Moscow
Photo Series: Boys, Bikes and Bucket Hats
Documenting the Edges of the USSR
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