photo: © Before They Pass Away by Jimmy Nelson, Kazakhs, Mongolia
In his project Before They Pass Away, Jimmy Nelson documents the lives and traditions of the last remaining tribes that had not embraced the globalization of the world around them.
The British photographer’s epic portraits present the dignified heirs to ancient traditions in all their glory, creating a unique visual experience. The book is therefore also an important historical document.
To create this edition, Jimmy Nelson traveled around the world between 2010 and 2014. His many years of travel experience had taught him that his camera was the best tool for making contact and building unique, intimate friendships in remote regions.
He wanted not only to explore the extent to which the rest of the world threatened unknown and misunderstood communities, but also to create an ambitious and aesthetically compelling photographic document that could stand the test of time.
Jimmy’s project Before They Pass Away was also intended to spark discussion about the authenticity of these fragile, disappearing cultures. He asks whether we, as a species, will abandon our fragile connection to our extraordinary ancestral past or choose another path.
He hopes that we will all gather around humanity’s digital campfire and continue telling, for generations to come, the stories that explain what it means to live on a planet that has survived into the 21st century.
Jimmy Nelson
Jimmy Nelson (UK, 1967) began working as a photographer in 1987. After spending ten years at a Jesuit boarding school in northern England, he set out to cross Tibet on foot. The journey lasted a year, and on his return this unique visual diary of the previously inaccessible Tibet was published worldwide.
Shortly afterward, he was commissioned to document a range of cultural subjects, from Russian influence in Afghanistan and the continuing conflict between India and Pakistan in Kashmir to the beginning of the war in the former Yugoslavia. In early 1994, he and his Dutch wife Ashkaine began the Literary Portraits of China, a forty-month project that took them to every hidden corner of the newly opened republic. The resulting images were shown at the People’s Palace on Tiananmen Square in Beijing and then toured successfully around the world.
From 1997 onward, Jimmy took on commercial advertising assignments for internationally renowned brands while raising a family in Amsterdam. At the same time, he increasingly photographed remote and unique regions with a fifty-year-old plate camera, earning numerous awards. His international exhibitions made it possible for him to realize Before They Pass Away .
Before They Pass Away - Jimmy Nelson
Pages: 424
Price: € 99.99
Language: English, German, and French. This article refers to the multilingual edition. Publisher: teNeues
ISBN: 9783832797591
