Dal Lake Mornings

— taken on the same trip as my Unexposed Kashmir series, these images capture life on the beautiful Dal Lake in Srinigar, Kashmir, during a city-wide curfew.

Background

While I was in Kashmir during the Summer of 2010, violence escalated throughout its capitol city and this period became the bloodiest months of Kashmir's history in more than 20 years.

A city-wide curfew was put in place on the streets of Srinagar for three days, restricting the entire population of the city to the confines of their homes. At this time I was based on a houseboat on the shores of the beautiful and serene Dal Lake, a place which became not only a refuge from the strict orders of the Indian army, but also an evocative backdrop that was juxtaposed against the simmering city of Srinagar.

These images show the only area of Srinagar where people were free to move about during the longest and farthest-reaching curfew that had been imposed by the Indian army for many years.