Photographer captures the spirit of Bhutanese people without making them cliched

Travelling is wonderful when you want to explore landscapes, architecture, the adventures that the nature has to offer but the greatest happiness that comes during the journey is almost always because of the people that you meet. Photographer Andrew Studer is one of those people who realized this gratifying element of travelling during his visit to a small Asian country, Bhutan.

Overwhelmed by the warmth of the Bhutanese people, the landscape photographer only took a few days to realize that he needed to focus his next photographical series on the people rather than on the landscape. The series, Faces of Bhutan captures the spirit and pride of the ever-colonial-free country so aptly that you can’t help but feel proud of their native culture as well.

Studer spent quite some time with the Brokpa tribe in the village of Marek, who are semi-nomatic yak herders by profession and needless to say, this turned out to be a very enriching experience for him. “The Brokpas live a fairly disconnected life and some even thought that I—an American—was from India because that’s as foreign as they could wrap their minds around,” Studer explains. “It was so surreal and inspiring to be living with and photographing the Brokpa’s unique way of life. Many of the men wear these incredible yak hide jackets and carry machetes on their belts.”

Image Credits: © Andrew Studer

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h/t: My Modern Met