Printed on money, found in person

It all started with a crumpled 20 rupee note.

Growing up in Pakistan, I saw places printed on the rupee notes I used every day, but one always stood out: the 4,500 year old ruins of Mohenjodaro on the back of the 20 rupee note. I had read about them in history textbooks but never seen them in person. When I finally visited in 2015, I asked the tour guide to take me to the exact spot the picture was taken from, held up a slightly crumpled note from my wallet, and The Currency Project began. Since then it has become the way I combine everything I love: travelling, photography, collecting and history.

What I did not expect was how many people it would bring into my life. Holding a banknote up in front of a landmark starts conversations everywhere. A woman outside the Badshahi Mosque traded me the 2 rupee coin from her bag, guards at Islamia College let us in once we explained the project, staff at the Hockey Hall of Fame waved me in and asked to share the photo, a tour guide in Washington nicknamed us the “Canadian Photographers”, and Jack, who runs a currency exchange in Antigua, handed me the 1 Quetzal note I could not find anywhere else. Almost every photo here has a story, and most of those stories have someone in them.