Catching the Light

Much has changed in Burma since Birgit Neiser first visited in 1981.The country is now known as Myanmar, and military rule - which lasted nearly half a century - has given way to a tentative democratic process. Returning in 2010, at the cusp of this groundbreaking shift, Neiser began spending two months each year in Myanmar. To document ways of life she knew would soon start to disappear and to reach areas inaccessible to the casual visitor, the author travelled across the country - on the back of timber trucks in the mountains of Kachin state, by motorbike in northern Shan State, and onboard an old fishing vessel in the Andaman Sea. The result is Catching the Light - a dazzling collection of photographs that captures a unique moment in Myanmar's social, cultural, and political history.