Clouds Over Changthang

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Story Behind the Photograph: Clouds Over Changthang

The northernmost region of India is the ‘land of high passes,’ Ladakh. Shielded from South Asia’s wet and humid monsoon by the Greater Himalayan range that stretches to its south and curves west, this Trans-Himalayan region is a vast cold desert.

Starting here and yawning into the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China lies the Changthang plateau. At 4500 meters above sea level, this is home to Chang-pa herders, their long-haired goats famed for Pashmina (cashmere) wool. Dotted with multi-colored hills and vast grasslands, every moment here is pure drama. No two moments hold the same scene in Changthang. If the mountains supply the props, the clouds supply the lighting on this fabulous stage.

Richly biodiverse, Changthang is home to snow leopards, gray wolves, Eurasian lynxes, blue sheep, ibexes and the endangered Tibetan antelopes called the chiru. The sacred, highly-endangered black-necked crane flies in from China each summer to breed in the marshes of Changthang. By all counts, this is a precious landscape.

This region is also bearing the brunt of climate change. Having seen a full degree rise in temperature, glaciers have vanished or are in retreat, parching the valleys of melt water, vital for sustenance of both pastoralists and wildlife.

Having driven all day over high snowy passes and past a new-born Indus River snaking into India from China, I reached the easternmost part of Indian Changthang just as a shroud half-covered the summer sun. It got chilly fast. Not too many tourists came out this way, and the roads were empty. I stopped our jeep on a low rise of pasture. I trained my telephoto lens on two sacred black-necked cranes in the distance, that were keeping watch over their nest. Off to my right, a Chang-pa tent called a rebo, flapped in a wicked wind that had picked up. Turning away from the cranes, I looked out over the green and ochre hills. A gunmetal sky had begun to rain on them. I switched out my telephoto lens for a wide-angle lens and waited for the last vestiges of daylight to sculpt the hills.

About Untamed Photographer

Untamed Photographer is an online art gallery that brings together wildlife photography and stories from a range of international environmental artists, both emerging and established.

Structured as an online marketplace, Untamed Photographer offers a selection of handpicked, limited-edition works of art, alongside the photographers’ compelling stories of what occurred in the wild to get the shot. The exclusive limited-edition pieces are printed in Miami and come with an artist-signed certificate of authenticity from their respective worldwide locations.

The Nature Trust of the Americas (NTOTA) was founded with the mission to give back. While building awareness for NTOTA’s causes, the founders met talented nature photographers who are passionate not only about photography, but also about saving the planet. Their life’s work and stories are inspiring, and their art, passion and stories deserve to be shared on a platform that benefits the environmental causes they are dedicated to.

Just as the photographers preserve the beauty of the planet in their art, Untamed Photographer is dedicated to preserving the planet for the future. All profits from photographs go to Untamed Photographer's two pillars: the artists and causes that protect the environment, ecosystems, and wildlife.

About the Photographer: Arati Kumar-Rao

Arati Kumar-Rao is a National Geographic Explorer, an independent environmental photographer, writer, and artist documenting the slow violence of ecological degradation. She communicates through photos, long-form narratives, and art.

Arati crisscrosses the South Asian subcontinent following a single story, across seasons, sometimes over years, in order to chronicle South Asia’s changing landscapes and climate, and its effect on livelihoods and biodiversity.

Arati is currently on a National Geographic Explorer grant to document forced human migration and is working on her first book.

Arati’s work has appeared in The National Geographic Magazine, The Hindu, #Dysturb, The Guardian, BBC Outside Source, Hindustan Times, Mint, and other outlets. She contributes to @EverydayClimateChange and @EverydayExtinction on Instagram and has been exhibited in India and internationally.

When not in the field, she calls Bangalore home where she raises three rescued cats.