The White Karen: Portraits from Northern Thailand’s Christian Villages

This portrait series documents the White Karen people — a Christian community living in the mountain villages of northern Thailand near Doi Inthanon. I was invited into homes, not just to photograph them, but to sit in them. To understand what it feels like to inhabit a space built entirely from what the land provides and what generations have passed down.

What captivated me most was the connection between the individual and the environment they have shaped. The homes are simple but rich with life — every worn surface, every object, every arrangement speaks of endurance and memory. The weathered hands of the elders, the vibrant traditional clothing of the women, the expressions of children who are entirely at ease — these details are inseparable from the portraits themselves. In these intimate spaces, the White Karen people exist not in the shadow of material poverty or hard labour, but in the light of what they have created and sustained.

These portraits were made in 2014 in villages on the slopes of Doi Inthanon, Thailand’s highest mountain. The access I was given — into homes’ intimacy — remains the experience that most directly shaped how I approach every portrait I make.