There, where the receding sea lays bare the rocks and the sand cracks under the heat, I captured a series of images for his exhibition marking Caspian Sea Day, celebrated annually on August 12. It is an honest, visual conversation about a tragedy unfolding on the shoreline – about people witnessing the sunset of a once-thriving life, lighthouses abandoned and orphaned, and the stench of death suspended in the air, undiminished even by the salty wind. This journey to the Caspian turned out to be more than a documentary mission – it became a deeply personal one, taking me back to childhood memories on the shores of the dying Aral Sea.