Sasha Dean Biyan was an aeronautical engineer and a consultant until becoming a full time photographer. He lived among indigenous tribes in Papua New Guinea and Borneo, and spent considerable time in the Amazon jungle living with the various tribes of the area. The technical and aesthetical foundations of his photography are remarkable, but it seemed to me that many of his ethnographical galleries were influenced by fashion. Intrigued, I looked his work up and discovered that he was also a successful fashion photographer. Mystery solved.His Earth Pilgrim website is flash-based, and its navigation is somewhat quirky. The background music is new age, which I promptly turned off. My favorite gallery of the seven different galleries is Alma (Soul). For the most part, the black and white portraits stunning, and are technically spot on. Just look at the second portrait in the Alma gallery: a portrait of a Muslim Indonesian woman in Solo, whose face and eyes are simply mesmerizing…and how about the expression of the Peruvian man in Pitumarca? Yet, other photographs feel bland and “sanitized”. Compare Sasha’s work with that of Phil Borges, and you’ll know what I mean.
In my opinion, his work hardly qualifies as travel photography, but it’s certainly beautiful. My thanks to Felice for referring me to his website: Earth Pilgrim
Image Copyright Sasha Dean Biyan
