-

Very excited to announce here on the blog the launch of a new partnership with tour agency Tibetan Connections, offering photography workshops and tours in western China on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Tibetan Connections, a small grass-roots company, have been based on the plateau for a number of years and are actively involved in encouraging responsible tourism in the region. Their ethos is to work with and hire local Tibetan people and visit communities to help support the people of the region through ethical tourism. They will be our logistical partners on the trip, looking after travel, guides and accommodation for us.

Our first collaboration begins in June with a 5-day tour from June 10-14, around the Eastern part of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, focusing on the monastic lifestyle and rituals in this region. I visited this region in November of last year and it really is a stunning part of the country, relatively unexplored compared to many other regions in China.

Below is an outline of the June tour. Be sure to check out the Tibetan Connections website for more information and to confirm your place on this trip.

Continue Reading »

A teenager with his yak on the shores of Qinghai Lake. 2010

SEAN GALLAGHER, FOR THE PULITZER CENTER, QINGHAI PROVINCE, CHINA

Tenzin’s green eyes bored into me as I looked at his sunburnt face. “Qinghai Lake is a very holy place for us. We regard it as the ‘soul’ of Qinghai.”

He was sitting by the side of a road running parallel to the lake shore. The sound of cars rushing past filled the air as Tenzin’s kneepads, torn and grazed, fluttered in the wind generated just a meter or two away. Tenzin was taking a momentary break from prostrating his way around the 360km circumference of the lake, in a stark and vivid act demonstrating the importance of this lake to Tibetans, who make up 80 percent of people in the region.

Located at 3200 meters above sea-level on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in the northwest of China, Qinghai Lake is the country’s largest inland body of saltwater at 4318 square kilometers in area. Over the past century, however, the lake has found itself in a worrying downward trend as 700 square kilometers of its area have been lost and its surface level has dropped by 13 meters.

Continue Reading »