We love a landscape portrait or architectural appreciation as much as the next photography aficionado, but when you get down to it, there’s no subject as rich and breathtaking as the human face. Few are proving that principle like Alexander Khimushin, who first came to our attention via Bored Panda; he’s spent the past nine years traveling the world (84 countries in all!) taking up-close portraits of indigenous people.
“There are hundreds of unique ethnic minority groups in the world,” Khimushin writes on his website. “These people are just incredible. However due to globalization, economic hardship, wars, racism and religious discrimination, many of them are living on the edge, losing national identity, language, traditions and in many cases facing total extinction.”
The result of his labor and artistry, “The World in Faces,” has become a website, an Instagram, and will soon make its way into book form. Until then, here are a few of our favorite portraits from the project.