UZBEKISTAN CALLING
is an ongoing body of work exploring observation, discovery and the value of looking beyond what we think we already know.
Photographed across cities, towns and landscapes, the project examines the space between expectation and reality.
It is less concerned with documenting Uzbekistan itself than with the act of looking; how unfamiliar places can challenge assumptions and reveal new ways of seeing.
A photo-book and expanded body of work are currently in development.
‘Before starting this journey through Uzbekistan, I was ignorant.
Ignorant of its history.
Ignorant of its people.
Ignorant of its importance.
Maybe that came from a lack of curiosity. Or maybe it comes from something wider — a conditioning, a quiet shaping of perception. We are often taught to fear what we do not know, and rarely encouraged to look deeper, especially toward places and people that sit outside our immediate world.
I write this now from the back of a small tour van, somewhere between Samarkand and Bukhara, heading toward the Kyzylkum — the Red Desert of Central Asia. Tonight we will sleep in yurts, surrounded by open land, and listen to songs passed through generations, carried by voice and firelight.
Inside this van is something that feels just as important as the destination. My girlfriend, who grew up in Venezuela. A couple from Tokyo. Our driver, Faxriddin. Music rotates between us — Russian, Uzbek, Latin, English, Japanese. The road stretches ahead, uneven, alive. The car shifts and sways across the terrain, and somehow, within this movement, there is a stillness.
This journey, this shared space between strangers, feels like a small reflection of what this place has always been.
Because Uzbekistan is not just a country — it is a convergence.’
