Driving Kashmir

It is impossible to do photographic justice to Kashmir in a short trip and I learned quickly that its geography of scattered villages makes it difficult to do classic walkabout street photography outside of the principal city of Srinagar. Spending several hours each day there driving to various destinations, I decided to take a different approach and see what could be done to create a "road documentary" series shot exclusively from a moving car.  With one eye scanning ahead for opportunities and the other in the viewfinder off to the side, it was a test of anticipation, instinct, and reflexes that took some getting used to.  The necessary constraints on aperture and shutter speed as well as shooting through a dirty window in the dull winter light led to some technically poor photos, which was initially frustrating.  But once I embraced the aesthetic and the unusual vantage point, in the place of a crisp and perhaps romantic perfection a somewhat detached but perhaps more honest, grittier world of unguarded and sometimes surprisingly intimate moments was revealed.  Some of the images here might stand on their own, but are meant to create a collective impression, presented in strictly chronological order and with no explicit narrative apart from the fleeting visions of passing through the in-between places in a strange and beautiful land.