Author
Matthieu Paley
Photojournalist Matthieu Paley specializes in documenting people and regions that are often misrepresented and is committed to issues relating to diminishing cultures and the environment. He is a regular contributor for National Geographic.
Articles by this author
Tastes of Azerbaijan
Food
Azerbaijan has sat at a crossroads of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Western Asia for centuries as a Silk Road hub and a gateway that empires routinely fought to control. That intersection also has manifested itself in the nation’s food—a complex and enticing stew of Turkic, Persian, Eastern European and other regional influences. This food diary explores the unique cuisines of each region.
The Ottoman Carpets of Transylvania
Some of the finest carpets ever made came from Ottoman workshops in western Anatolia between the 16th and 19th centuries. One of the best collections of them can be found displayed and stored among more than a dozen churches in Transylvania.
FirstLook: “Children can swim before they walk"
Photographer Matthieu Paley was in Southeast Asia working on stories about the evolution of the human diet when he made this picture. "I was visiting traditional, self-sufficient communities to see how food shapes daily life. My host was named Marita. She was inside preparing food as I arrived."
Via Egnatia to Rome and Byzantium
History
Paved with stones that, according to one Roman writer, “give the appearance not simply of being laid together ... but they seem to have actually grown together,” the Via Egnatia joined East and West under empires both Roman and Ottoman. Much of its 1,100-kilometer length can still be walked and driven, from original-stone footpaths in Albania to a superhighway in Greece.