Todd Antony: Buzkashi

Between archaic rituals and lived reality: Todd Antony documents a centuries-old tradition in striking black and white images of great visual strength. Through his series on the equestrian sport of Buzkashi in Tajikistan, he also explores universal human experiences: competitiveness, a sense of belonging and identity.

You can almost hear the pictures before you even see them. The thunderous hooves, the throaty blare of Karnay trumpets, all interspersed with noisy shouts. Buzkashi is considered one of the oldest equestrian sports in the world, and is still played in parts of Central Asia. Men on large, powerful horses, fight over the dead body of a goat, trying to hold their own against their opponents and, ultimately, get it across the finish line. There are no teams nor clear rules, and barely any boundaries to the playing field. What emerges during this contest is a complex web of unpredictable forces and fleeting alliances.

Todd Antony travelled to Tajikistan for the first time in early 2025. Beginning as research into a little-known tradition, it soon evolved into a long-term project. He was less interested in the spectacle than in the people behind it. For many years, he has dedicated his personal work to communities that lie beyond the public attention. He is fascinated by the way in which identity, cohesion and cultural memory manifest themselves in everyday rituals. In this regard, he feels that Buzkashi acts rather like a magnifying glass.

Antony’s pictures were taken from a dangerously close distance – right in the thick of the action. He was usually on foot as he worked, right in the middle of the playing field, often stuck ankle-deep in the mud, searching for reasonably safe positions amidst the churned-up ground, between the horses and clouds of dust. There were only a few occasions when he approached the field in a tiny pick-up truck – and it quickly lost its wing mirrors and rear light. Consequently, control during the photographic process was more of a fleeting moment than a reliable state. “I was struck by the fact that while the riders were attempting to gain control of a moment in a sea of absolute chaos, my photography process was also precisely emulating this,” is the was Antony summarises the situation. This acknowledgement runs through the series. Time and again, individual figures emerge from the masses only to disappear again seconds later. As a result, his images speak of both competition and community, strength and vulnerability, order and chaos.

Antony’s decision to work in black and white is also essential for this meta level. For a project that could be distilled down to light, form and tonal values, the landscapes of Tajikistan offered ideal conditions. Mountains vanish into the haze, smoke drifts across the plains, and the silhouettes of horses stand out as dark shapes against bright horizons. The pictures seem timeless, because they do not speak of an exotic tradition, but rather of universal experiences: of people striving for recognition, of communities preserving their stories, and of the desire to regain control, if only for a brief moment, in a world full of uncertainties. “Photography forces me to slow down, to actually be somewhere rather than just pass through it,” Antony explains. His images reveals what can arise when you do just that: remain, observe and pay enough attention in order to recognise the decisive moment amid the chaos. 

Todd Antony’s series was submitted by Barak Ofari, who is part of this year’s group of international LOBA nominators.