On an expedition through northeast Afghanistan’s Wakhan Corridor, French photographer Frédéric Lagrange captured the rugged, elemental beauty of One of Asia’s wildest landscapes and the resilience of the people who call it home.

“It Was in the late 1990s, while reading Eric Newby’s A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush — A chronicle of his trek through what is now northeast Afghanistan — that my interest in this part of Central Asia was first piqued. I’d soon made up my mind: I was going. Then 9/11 happened, and Afghanistan relapsed into war. I ended up visiting the wide-open spaces of Mongolia instead, returning again and again over the next decade.

But Afghanistan remained fixed in my mind. so, in the late winter of 2012, after securing a month away from commercial assignments — and convincing my wife that I would be safe — I set off. A friend in London who runs expeditions in the Wakhan Corridor had put me in touch with guides who could take me into Afghanistan from Tajikistan — The dangerous road northeast from Kabul was out of the question.” – Frédéric Lagrange