Traveling can often be a time for self-discovery. Photographer Alexander Khimushin, 47, has spent the last nine years visiting 84 countries to do just that. After years of traveling it was getting clearer and clearer to me that the people and their cultures were the best of all my experience, Khimushin told weather.com

Khimushins nomadic lifestyle provided him with the opportunity to see the rich diversity of human civilization. For the last three years, he focused on photographing peoples portraits in each city he visited, all included in a series called The World in Faces. Faces of all of that people--its like an encyclopedia of the world to me, he said. The face of each individual person depicts personality, character traits, an imprint of an occupation, inherent only to him [or] her and no one else.

His life as a travel photographer has prepared him to be aware of the various cities and countries climates. Its in the hands of the photographer to know how to photograph even in the most challenging conditions. You can easily die from sun or dehydration, get frozen to death in [freezing temperatures] in less than hour, have your high altitude sickness in the mountains or [go crazy] in wet climate[s] from anxiety and insomnia from humidity, he said.

Through World in Faces, Khimushin hopes to portray the possibility of a peaceful coexistence among the people of the world. It is humans themselves, who, at any given time, can destroy this fragile world by their lack of understanding, intolerance towards people of other cultures, religions [and] ethnicities, he said. The beauty of our world, he said, is in our differences. Where [people] live and whatever culture they belong to, [we] share the same universal values.

Despite this commonality, Khimushin says that forces like globalization, economic hardship, war and discrimination, many ethnic minority groups are forced to live on the edge. He hopes to use this project to help unify people despite the differences in their cultures and outward appearances. If we all realise how unique and amazing we, the people, are, we will care more about each other, be more tolerant to people of another ethnicity, religion and culture, he said.

Khimushin plans to continue the series as he travels around the globe. Follow along his journey on Facebook and Instagram.

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Photographer Travels to Find Beauty in Diverse Faces of the World (PHOTOS) - The Weather Channel