New Zealand is a beautiful country completely filled with picturesque landscapes, making it a perfect place for photographers. But clicking similar pictures in the same location can get a little monotonous. Keeping that in mind, an Indian photographer came up with a unique idea to set his pictures apart.

Akhil Suhas, 21, documented the six months he spent in New Zealand travelling over 15,000km by featuring locals and tourists dressed up as Gandalf the wizard in every picture. In addition to setting his photographs apart, this amazing idea also gave the pictures scale and focus. His unique take even ended up gaining over 5,000 new Instagram followers.

A post shared by photographer ╳ new zealand (@akhilsuhas) on Aug 31, 2016 at 10:54pm PDT

“I wanted a recurring subject in my photos. When you have so many photographers visiting the country, I figured that I needed to do something to set me apart. Then, I was watching the Lord of the Rings for the 5th time and then the idea struck.” he said. 

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Suhas spent some portion of his six-month trip with a photographer friend, but  while travelling alone, he would ask strangers to dress up as Gandalf and pose for him. And, surprisingly, not a single person turned him down.

A post shared by photographer ╳ new zealand (@akhilsuhas) on Dec 14, 2016 at 8:05pm PST

“The trick is to strike up a conversation and then explain my project and then ask them if they’d like to dress up,” he said. “Luckily, not a single person said no as they must’ve realised that if you’re in Middle Earth, might as well live the fantasy of being Gandalf.”

To fund his unusual journey, Suhas would sometimes work in hostels and even put up a mattress in the back of his station wagon to cut down on costs. 

“Before I started this journey, I thought to myself, it doesn’t matter that I might spend a bit of money of this trip, I have my whole life ahead of me to earn money and pay off student loans and bills. At the end of the day, your memories last longer than material things.”

A post shared by photographer ╳ new zealand (@akhilsuhas) on Jan 28, 2017 at 7:41pm PST

This brilliant and unique idea definitely worked in his favour as all of his photographs turned out to be extremely stunning.