Light in the Shadows of T'ien Shan brings together clack and white natural and human landscapes to inform and pose questions about the beauty and also difficulties of  life in Baizakh.

My overwhelming impression of Baizakh at the times I saw was one of emptiness - a largely closed world with rutted mud streets of streaked light and shadow. I saw few people on the street - men were going to work in the very early morning, women who stayed seemed to be busy in enclosed courtyards  of houses. Children at school. 

There was a very dramatic storm with dust and driving rain, sun glinting on the mosque and trees before and after the clouds passed.

The main spare time I had was in the very early morning for walks in the mountain, or just strolling down the lane where I lived on the outskirts of the village. Watching the changing emerging sunlight on the peaks of snow. Then the gold to red sunset in the evening as quiet settled again after a period of noise and activity.   

But this was only the outside - I knew from my participant friends at the workshop that the inside worlds were very different. Worlds of poetry and song where everyone was invited to join in.