Captured in Trance.

Only a few days earlier I had been roughly one hundred kilometers north of Gilgit. The atmosphere there was energetic and deeply human, yet it belonged to the same experience as the polo match. Throughout northern Pakistan, everything felt slightly removed from what I knew.

It was late August or perhaps early September. The air was clear, the light was sharp, and the mountains seemed impossibly large. What struck me was not simply their beauty, but their presence. The peaks surrounding the Hunza Valley appeared ancient and permanent, as if they had existed long before human history and would remain long after it.

I remember standing there for hours, doing little more than looking. Time stood still. The longer I stayed, the more aware I became of my own scale within the landscape. Places like this have a way of putting things into perspective. They remind you that nature operates on a timeline far beyond our own concerns, ambitions, and daily routines.

Looking at this photograph today, what stays with me is not only the view itself but the sense of perspective it offered. Karimabad was one of those rare places that makes you pause, look longer than usual, and remember how vast the world really is.