Next week I'll pass through one of my favorite places. Xianjing Province in far western China is home to numerous people groups. Wikipedia helps me out here with a rundown of the groups: Muslim Turkic groups including the Uyghurs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Tatars and the Kazakhs, and a few Indo-European Iranic groups, such as the Tajiks and the Sarikolis/Wakhis (often mis-identified as Tajiks). Other PRC minority ethnic groups include Hui Chinese, the Mongols, the Russians, the Xibes, and the Manchus.

Translation: It's an amazing dichotomy of people groups, cultures, and languages. Photographing such diversity is heaven, especially when I was here two years ago in the spring. There's something about this time of year that made people naturally smile and let down their guard in front of a camera. Ok, not all of these were taken in Xianjing, but all were within 100 miles of there.