What does freedom look like in South Asia?

Image of man standing under light in dark garden

Inzmam Javed used a timer to capture this image of himself standing in his garden in Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan. Freedom has a profound meaning for him. "As the world develops, my country Pakistan chooses to take a step backwards. Freedom," he says, would be "to see the sunlight again."

Venkatakrishnan Narayanan took this picture of an elephant taking a bath in Guruvayur, Kerala, India. He said the creature was enjoying its freedom to wash.

Babita Baruwati from Bangalore said she felt free among the mountains in Hatta Valley in Uttrakhand, India. She spent three days trudging through the snow to get to that point.

A family in southern Punjab using trees as shelter. Amar Shakir Jajja was struck by the freedom of living without walls. "I envied them as I live in a city (Lahore in Pakistan) where we have only bricks and stones around us."

Vinod Nelson's daughter chases bubbles in a busy tourist spot in Delhi. Where the family usually live, in Kabul, she would never be allowed to dance around on the street. Vinod and his wife Jovitta Thomas imagine a time when girls in Afghanistan can enjoy such freedoms.

Hamida Mohibullah says she felt like she was "floating" when she took this picture of the Kabul landscape. The calm outlook makes Afghanistan seem like "the most peaceful country in the world, as if 35 years of war and destruction had never happened there".

A man wraps up against the extreme cold in Bahawalpur, Pakistan. "He seemed to be unconscious of his surroundings and was in his own world - oblivious to the temperature," says Syed Arslan Bukhari, who took the picture.

A moment of private contemplation for one man in Camp Bastion, the main British military base in Afghanistan. Mark de Rond, who took the picture in July 2011, says it represents an attempt to have a moment's respite and privacy in war-torn Afghanistan.

Anirudha Sharma feels most free when he is away from his office environment and out instead in the fresh air with the trees, rivers, mountains and lakes for company, as this image from Himachal Pradesh in northern India shows.

Jhana Tshong studies in Pune, India, but returned to her native Bhutan in 2011 to visit family. The historic Paro Valley near her hometown is the place where she feels most free. Email your images of freedom around the world to freedom@bbc.co.uk

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