
A photographer from the United Arab Emirates has captured a series of expressive portraits of people living in Pakistan.

Sohail Karmani, a writing professor at New York University Abu Dhabi, spend two weeks touring the city of Sahiwal, in the province of Punjab.

The city is based in the heavily-populated area between the Sutlej and Ravi rivers.

More than 60 per cent of the population live in extreme poverty, surviving on as little as £1.30 a day.

The 48-year-old travelled to the city to capture the lives of local people, and have a glimpse of how the people are coping in a world of poverty.

In his travels, Karmani met and photographed everyone from to children to heroin addicts to homeless people, from mystics and snake charmers to fruit-sellers.

The 22nd largest city in Pakistan, Sahiwal has a population of around 270,000 and is about 99 per cent Muslim.

Life for the people living there is made increasingly difficult by the city’s extreme climate, which ranges from 45 degrees Celsius in summer and 2 degrees Celsius in winter.

But Mr Karmani's snapshots reveal the people's astonishing ability to survive against the odds.

A heroin addict on the streets of Sahiwal wearing a bright pink turban, captured by photographer Sohail Karmani in Pakistan

A homeless man in a green turban and glasses fixed with tape (left) and a mystic (right), pictured in Sahiwal, where people survive on as little as £1.30 a day

A woman wearing a yellow shawl over her hair and an elaborate nose stud looks curiously at the camera of photographer Sohail Karmani

A snake keeper sitting on the streets of Sahiwal, in Pakistan, using his snakes to sell oils and remedies

A young girl dressed in muddy clothes and living in the slums of Sahiwal, but smiling for the camera against the odds

A mystic and an elderly man, pictured by photographer and writing professor Sohail Karmani, in a slum in the Pakistani city of Sahiwal

A little girl stares boldly at the camera, at her home in the Sahiwal slum, where people survive in the extreme climate

An elderly market trader sits in a broken chair in the doorway of his home in Sahiwal, where people survive on as little as £1.30 a day

An elderly woman wearing a floral scarf poses for the camera before returning to work on a farm (left) and a spiritual mystic (right)

A young boy (left) and a young girl clutching a knife (right) who will only know childhood in the Sahiwal slum which they call home

A young girl in the Sahiwal slum where the extreme climate ranges from 45 degrees Celsius in the summer to 2 degrees Celsius in winter

An elderly gentleman selling oranges on the streets on Sahiwal (left) and a man wearing an old bag as hat against the cold

A market trader wearing a bright green turban, and hauling a sack full of his goods, pauses on his way home to have his photograph taken

A young transvestite wears a veil and make-up as he walks through the streets of Sahiwal, in the Punjab district of Pakistan

Two children in the slums of the Pakistani city, as part of an expressive series of portraits captured by photographer Sohail Karmani

An elderly woman smokes a cigarette while sitting on the train tracks that run through Sahiwal

A young homeless child wrapped in a blanket in Sahiwal. The city, which has a population of about 270,000, is the 22nd largest in Pakistan