Mattia Passarini | Remote People

Photo © Mattia Passarini-All Rights Reserved

Here's photographic work that will gladden the hearts of many of photographers (and many that I know well) who relish portraiture of remote indigenous cultures. There are some that are environmental portraits, but the majority are just facial portraits...some posed and others not.

Mattia Passarini's portraits are from China's Sichuan, Yunnan, Pakistan's Northern regios, India's Chhatisgarh, Orissa, Gujarat, the Democratic Republic of Congo, from Baka and Bambuti Pygmies, Rabaris, Jats (notoriously difficult to photograph), Ahirs, the Ramnami, China's Miao, Myanmar's Dai and Muun, and Indonesia's Mentawai...they're all there.

And for those who agree with Survival International that British photographer Jimmy Nelson’s stylised pictures of African, Asian and Amazon Indian groups are “wrong”and “false and damaging”, this cornucopia of imagery doesn't have a whiff of artificiality. This is "what you see is what you get" ethnophotography.

Mattia Passarini's biography is sparse, but he started on his global photographic endeavors on moving to the United Kingdom. Over the course of 11 years of travel, he visited more than 35 countries across four continents, capturing images of the world’s tribal people, and of lives and places that exist in relative obscurity.

He currently lives in China completing a project on a local ethnic group.