Walter Bosshard

Walter Bosshard (November 8, 1892 in Samstagern, Switzerland – November 18, 1975 in Ronda, Spain) was a Swiss photographer and reporter.

Bosshard's early work involved photography of Southeast Asia and China in the 1920s. He was one of three foreign photographers invited to the 1929 crowning of Mohammad Nadir Shah of Afghanistan. In 1930, Bosshard published a work of photographs detailing Mahatma Gandhi's private life, including photographs of the salt march. In 1932, Bosshard published another work entitled Hazards of Asia's Highlands and Deserts. In this he describes an expedition he undertook with two other German scientists into the south western section of the Taklamakhan desert of Xinjiang, China, in the vicinity of Khotan. They were searching the area where Sir Aurel Stein had discovered traces of and artifacts from early Buddhist sites. His book betrays the European attitude fairly common in that period, namely an insensitivity to local politics and culture. The expedition had entered China from Ladakh and Leh. Bureaucratic difficulties eventually dogged it to the extent that Bosshard felt he could no longer work there. The local bureaucracy feared that he and his companions were secretly looking for gold. He does not mention the fate of his companions from whom he got separated. He was forced to leave Xinjiang via Kashgar and crossed into Soviet Kirhizstan, though he managed to take some Buddhist artifacts out. The book gives a reasonable account of the growing Russian influence in the area preceding the Tungan revolt. He covered photography of the Second Sino-Japanese war for Life magazine.