Himanshu
Khagta.

Himanshu Khagta (b. 1990) is a photographer and filmmaker based in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh. For more than fifteen years he has documented the people, landscapes and rituals of the Indian Himalayas — from high-altitude villages in Spiti, Ladakh and Kinnaur to religious gatherings across northern India.

His photographs have been published by The New York Times, BBC Travel, Condé Nast Traveller, National Geographic Traveller and Lonely Planet, and in DestinAsian, Outlook Traveller, The Caravan and Hindustan Times. In the winter of 2014 he spent six months in Spiti, where temperatures fall to −30°C, photographing its residents for the long-term project and photobook Life in Spiti.

Self-taught, he began photographing his hometown as a schoolboy and was working for travel magazines while still at college, graduating in Political Science from DAV College, Chandigarh.

In 2018 he founded QUROST, an outdoor video and ad-film production company, directing and producing films for Royal Enfield, National Geographic Traveller India, vivo and Fujifilm among many others. He co-founded From Shimla, which pioneered shipping apples directly from Himachal’s orchards to homes across India, runs the café Tinmo’s in Rohru, and documents Himalayan journeys on his YouTube channel Himalayan Roads.