In the remote highlands outside Ölgii, in Mongolia’s far west, Kazakh families still practice the ancient tradition of eagle hunting. Training golden eagles to hunt across vast, open terrain. It is one of the last living expressions of a partnership between humans and wild animals that stretches back centuries.

I traveled to the Altai region alongside award-winning photojournalist Claire Thomas to photograph these families in their daily lives. We stayed in their homes in some of the most remote areas of the country, shared meals, and listened as they talked about their traditions, their craft, and the pressures threatening both. The intimacy of that access…sitting with a family, as they described what eagle hunting means to their identity, shaped everything about how I approach documentary work.

This trip became the foundation for my ongoing long-term project, The Last Nomads of the Dzud, which follows herder families confronting the catastrophic winter conditions, intensified by climate change, that have killed over 8 million livestock in the past two years and are threatening the survival of Mongolia’s nomadic pastoral culture.