Patan through three lenses

The late American photographer John M. Hall came to Patan in the mid-1990s. Trained as an architect and deeply grounded in the classical tradition, Hall brought an architect's understanding of composition, proportion, and spatial relationships to his photography. Faced with one of the most frequently photographed architectural ensembles in Nepal, he set himself a deceptively difficult challenge: to see it anew. As Hall put it, “I want to find new views of this extraordinary complex of buildings called Patan Darbar.”

Photographed Patan: mid-1990s

Equal parts aesthete, designer, and photographer, Guillermo brings an instinct for composition, material, atmosphere, and the way people move through space to his work. He arrived in Patan expecting to photograph people. What surprised him was their ease: meeting beside a centuries-old wall, resting against a column, or moving freely through extraordinary historic spaces as part of everyday life. That constant movement challenged both his expectations and his camera, becoming part of what drew him deeper into the life of the square.

Photographed Patan for KVPT

Malik describes himself as "a provocateur and artist of sorts." Growing up in Louisiana, he was often the outlier, instinctively pushing against what felt too reserved, comfortable, or already established.

On his first visit to Patan, it was the detail and unexpected scale of the architecture that caught his eye. The abstractions came later, as he returned to his photographs and began transforming them into something else entirely.

Photographed Patan: 2024, 2025

Trained as a mathematician and later in scientific photography, Stanisław Klimek brings an unusual precision to his work. He first came to Patan in 1992 to document architectural heritage with Niels Gutschow and Erich Theophile, beginning a relationship with Nepal that would span decades. His gift has been grasping the architects' and historians' needs and carefully designing his views accordingly with much preparation and set-up going into each shot - he doesn't believe in casual snapshots.

Photographing Patan and the Kathmandu Valley since 1992

Ashesh Rajbansh is a Kathmandu-based fineart photographer and educator who has spent much of his career photographing Nepal's architectural heritage and helping develop its photographic culture through teaching, publishing, and documentation. He cofounded SPACES, a magazine devoted to art and architecture, and his work has appeared in international publications and collaborative documentation projects. For Ashesh, Nepal's architecture is not a distant subject, but part of the cultural landscape in which he lives and works.

Photographed KVPT's post-earthquake reconstruction campaign