Photo Essays
1 MIN READ
Photographer Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi's photos of Kathmandu Valley during the lockdown
Through my photographs, I have, for years, tried to capture the living synergy between the people and places of Kathmandu Valley. Every monument, temple, public space obviously serves a functional purpose. And in the best architectural edifices, one can discern the magic of the living, lived, synergy between edifice, people, place. However, that synergy oftentimes dictates a shot’s composition and occupies the foreground in the viewer’s consciousness, while the architecture recedes into the noise. During the past few months of the lockdown, I would venture out on photography assignments to capture the lockdown’s effects on Kathmandu’s populace. But in the course of my trying to document the impacts, I would often find myself wanting to shoot Kathmandu’s monuments, temples, and public spaces. I knew that documenting them in a setting devoid of people would be to present them through a frame we are not familiar with. For me, the shots in this photo feature are thus almost-absurd pieces—unmoored as they are from context—yet they’ve allowed me to pull to the foreground the details of our lived heritage that often get blurred by the living energy of Kathmandu’s people.
:::::::::::
Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi Photographer Laxmi Prasad Ngakhusi has been documenting the Kathmandu Valley for over 15 years.
COVID19
Features
10 min read
The elderly continue to wait their turn as journalists, diplomats, development workers, government officials, and bankers get the jab.
Perspectives
9 min read
The current protests will need to truly speak on behalf of Nepal’s poor, not just the middle class
COVID19
News
3 min read
Daily summary of all Covid19 related developments that matter
Writing journeys
13 min read
This week on Writing Journeys, US-based journalist and writer Sanjay Upadhya recounts his time working at The Rising Nepal under the Panchayat and the lessons he’s learned along the way.
The Wire
7 min read
Incident reporting more prevalent than analysis of larger social picture
The Wire
19 min read
Nepal’s moneyed classes, aided by unscrupulous banks and an irresponsible government, have turned land into a quickly tradeable commodity
Features
5 min read
The politics of the deaths of individual bodies, social groups, or entire populations has become increasingly normalised
Features
3 min read
The official height of Everest was determined through the use of high-tech instruments and with Nepali surveyors making the dangerous climb to the top of the mountain