Canal Portraits
At any given time there can be as many as 600 boats on the western end of the Kennet and Avon canal serving as homes to a community of nomadic boat dwellers inextricably bound by a dark muddy stretch of water. People who have temporarily managed to create an existence for themselves outside of the constraints of mainstream society, where they have found truly affordable homes. A group that have found a shared way to live beyond the metropolis, surrounded by nature, constructing lives for themselves lived in tune with the seasons.
An Uneasy Paradise
Living on the Waterways
From the open vistas of the Pewsey Vale to the wooded hills of the Limpley Stoke Valley, a community has grown that is quite unlike any other. United by a stretch of water that shapes a communal identity, people of diverse ages and backgrounds have been drawn to a way of life by the beauty and the freedom that it has to offer. A people whose way of life is under pressure as the rules and regulations by which the waterways are governed transform and tighten.
Himalayan Road Workers
The Manali to Leh road, which travels through India’s Himalayan region of Ladakh, known as the land of high passes, is amongst the highest in the world. Shut off for seven months of the year, the summer sees the arrival of tens of thousands of migrant workers from some of India’s poorest regions including Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, who come to build and maintain the roads recently revealed from beneath a blanket of snow. Men, women and children struggle against harsh conditions with only basic tools; at altitudes of over 5,000m oxygen is thin and night time temperatures are below freezing with frequent snowfall, the workers are accommodated in basic tent structures and suitable clothing and safety apparatus are almost entirely absent.