Jimmy Nelson's Before they pass away collection
The British photographer and journalist Jimmy Nelson created 'Before They Pass Away', a collection of photographs of more than thirty indigenous tribes from all over the world. What drives Nelson to travel to the four corners of the world and take such powerful portraits of the remote communities?
Born in Sevenoaks, Kent, Jimmy Nelson spent his childhood in Asia, South America and Africa. At the age of six, he was sent to a Jesuit English boarding school by his parents. During this stressful time, he developed Alopecia Totalis, a condition that caused him to lose his hair. After finishing school, at the age of 18, he decided to travel through Tibet. In a recent BBC interview Nelson commented: “I decided to go to the one place where I thought people would look like me, so in 1986, at age 18, I went to Tibet to live among the legions of bald monks.” Travelling by foot and armed with a camera, he started exploring a country that few had seen in more than thirty years. The journey turned out to be a great success; Nelson found a new passion and his work got published in the Royal Geographic Society.
Since then, while travelling all over the world, the photographer has been obsessed by capturing (indigenous) tribes. Driven by his endless curiosity, he focusses on both the aesthetical as well as the ethical aspects of his work. Instead of just taking a photograph, Nelson tries to gain the trust of his subjects by blending in with the tribes and helping them with daily activities like hunting and building tents. “They saw this strange person who was very passionate, very peculiar, who was putting them on a pedestal, using this old technical plate camera. Many of the photos were made with a four or five second exposure, and to get into that process of mutual understanding there’s been a massive build-up, sometimes weeks of building trust.”
The result of these setups is a great collection of raw, honest photographs depicting proud individuals in a way we haven’t seen before. “These tribes have always been photographed in a demeaning way. I’ve inverted that process.”
Nelson’s work is an esthetical portrayal of the diverse, largely unknown cultures that exist on our planet. A refreshing view, that doesn’t exclude indigenous populations, but respects their own traditions. Most of the tribes being threatened by extinction, in a way, Nelson’s portraits immortalise these slowly disappearing communities and his work has become an iconic testimony of their existence.
Before They Pass Away
For his most recent project, Before They Pass Away, Jimmy Nelson visited some of the most inaccessible locations on earth. “Over a period of three years, from 2010 to 2013, I went on 16 journeys, varying from one to two months each. Each trip was different. For example, it took a month and a half to find the Chukchi travelling in a Russian Tundra tank. There are only about 80 Chukchi left in an area the size of France with no roads. The only way to find them is to follow the reindeer droppings.”
Travelling for three years with a 50-year-old 4x5 camera and photographing over 35 indigenous tribes, his work resulted in a book containing portraits of tribes Africa, Asian and Amazon Indian groups.
More information and more works by Jimmy Nelson, please visit Rademakers Gallery Amsterdam
