AKIPRESS.COM - When Australian photographer John Feely decided to visit remote communities in western Mongolia, he had no idea that his photos would be selected as part of the Head On Photo Festival. The snapper spent nearly three months in Bayan-Ugli region in the Altai Mountains taking photographs of the stark landscape and indigenous people, reports The Daily Telegraph.

The 36-year-old is now a featured artist at the Head On Photo Festival which runs from April 29 to May 22 and his photos, called The Outsider, will be displayed at the Gaffa Gallery in Sydney.

Feely made two trips to Mongolia and spent two years on his photographic project The Outsider.

“I was a complete outsider there,” Feely said. “I wanted to go somewhere completely outside my own reality and it certainly was... The greatest things happened on that trip that were beyond my own imagination."

Feely lived with indigenous communities in Mongolia which he said have strong traditions centring on the family.

He said he decided to go to Mongolia after picking it off a map because he wanted to learn from and spend time with people who had a traditional way of life.

“The way I was embraced by the people out there was phenomenal,” Feely said. “I had a beautiful welcome in traditional ways."