Image: Leighton Kelly, 2007. Kaza, Spiti Valley, Western Himalayas.
Image: Sonam Zoksang, Bodhgaya, India,
Wasfia’s fascination with photography started at the age of 13. After her parents divorced, she went off to live with one of her aunts in Dhaka, the capital city of Bangladesh. It was during this time that she was gifted a used Nikon SLR camera by one of her cousins visiting from abroad. Later on, she majored in Documentary Photography for her undergrad in Edinburgh, Scotland. This was before the digital age, when spending days and weeks processing photographs in the dark-room was still fun!
Her first ever assignment was to cover His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama in his exiled home in the foothills of the Himalayas, where she ended up making a home for years to follow. She has covered a myriad of topics over the years, including the Tibetan refugee diaspora in the Himalayas and elsewhere, the Indigenous peoples of Bangladesh, women’s stories of struggle in Bangladesh and Himalayas, resistance movements from around the globe, the complex issues surrounding the Everest region, etc.
All photographs copyrighted by Wasfia Nazreen, unless otherwise stated.
Dawn’s teachings, Bodhgaya, India - across from the Bodhi Tree under which Shakyamuni Buddha was enlightened.
HHDL in Ladakh, Jammu & Kashmir.
Tibetan from inside Tibet, 2009. She risked her life and walked miles of treacherous Himalayan paths for one glimpse of HH the 14th Dalai Lama in-exile and to get his teachings, which is banned in China and China-controlled Tibet. For security reasons, her name is not disclosed.
A Patrick Morrow/Wasfia Nazreen composite photo of Pat photographing a grizzly bear in Kootenay National Park, British Columbia. The closeup photo of the Mama bear chewing on a dandelion stock in Pat’s rear screen was taken by him and then superimposed on Nazreen’s photograph of him documenting the sow and her cubs out of focus, by nathasha2012, a freelance Photoshop expert at Fiverr.com .
"Baul singing is meditation in motion, as we sing, dance and play the instruments at the same time. When the heart and soul are soaked in the devotion of the song and the body is in continuous motion, the core enters a meditative state, still and silent. A Baul singer transcends mere aesthetic performance, breaking the barrier of the mundane to soar into a plane of sheer inner experience of spiritual seeking. Baul music takes its source and inspiration from the folk music of Bengal. Like Sufi kalam, these songs are speech oriented. We never say “sing a song,” we say “speak a song,” as these songs are for remembering the spoken truth of realized souls and of pure Love." - Parvathy Baul. Following the partition of India in 1947, Parvathy Baul's grandparents migrated from EastBengal or more precisely, today's Chittagong region of Bangladesh and settled in West Bengal. She eventually abandoned the norms of her traditional Bengali Brahmin family in pursuit of her spiritual calling, and this image depicts the first time she had arrived back to her roots, to the soils of Bangladesh to celebrate SouthAsian day for peace, democracy, justice, and human rights organized by One Billion Rising Bangladesh (উদ্যমে উত্তরণে শতকোটি) & Sangat South Asia. The Goddess that she is - she kept the entire Dhaka audience magically in motion while speaking her Truth or the Living Wisdom, which erupts deep inside the soul of the yogic body inspired from realizations in the practitioner's heart. She is seen here solo rendering the oldest style of Baul song and dance, using three traditional instruments, all played at the same time: ektara/gopi yantra (one stringed instrument), duggi/bama (hip drum) and the chilambu/nupur (metallic anklets). This was an incredible evening of celebration and RISING together to end violence against women. November, 2014.
Kanadapara brothel, Tangail, Bangladesh
Traffic jam on Everest, Nepal side, 2012
A young girl from the neigborhood Wasfia grew up in. Notun Bajar, Khulna, Bangladesh
Christiana Sairi Louwa, of the El Molo community, at the tenth session of the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII10) was held at UN Headquarters, New York from 16-27 May 2011
Devotion in exile
Mandala Offering
Happiness is a state of mind
An indigenous woman from Khagrachari, Chittagong Hill Tracts, shows how to smoke through a bamboo bong
Tibetan refugees under dawn’s light
Sherpa people and Nepali high-altitude workers of other ethnicities breaking their backs to help climbers from around the world realize their dreams of reaching the top of the world. Image shows route from camp 2 to 3, on the body of Chomolungma, Mother Goddess of the Universe, more popularly known as Everest
Offering Dance
Protest in the Himalayas, 2007
What’s left of BojjroJogini (Vajrayogini in Sanksrit) - Maha Siddha Atish Dipankar’s home. Bikrampur, Bangladesh
HH the 17th Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, Dharamsala
From the publication Between Ashes and Hope: Chittagong Hill Tracts in the Blind Spot of Bangladesh Nationalism, by Naeem Mohaiemen 2010
“Into Exile: Tibet 1949-2009” a photography exhibition curated by Wasfia Nazreen & Tanvir Murad Topu, organized in partnership with DRIK, that was shut down with pressure from Chinese Embassy in Dhaka, Bangladesh 2009. The exhibition was still shown online while police barricaded the premises and audience waited in the streets
Curated by Wasfia Nazreen & Tanvir Murad Topu/DRIK, 2009.