Video: Another life: a series of portraits of the Ethiopian tribes by Diego Arroyo
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Art director and photographer Diego Arroyo, on a recent trip to Ethiopia, shot a series of portraits of people from the tribes of the Omo River Valley, which is three days' drive from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa and remains one of the few territories on our planet where else almost a primitive way of life has been preserved.
Diego Arroyo was born in Spain, works in New York, and travels around the world in search of elusive frames: faces, looks, smiles that tell a personal story, while bringing us closer to understanding the innermost essence of human existence.
The photographer had been hatching a trip to Ethiopia for years. “The Omo Valley is stunningly beautiful and has a unique anthropological significance. It was an exciting and challenging journey full of adventure and experience, during which I had the opportunity to get acquainted with the amazing cultural heritage of the ancient tribes inhabiting the region,”says Arroyo.
In addition to fulfilling his creative goals and quenching his thirst for travel, the photographer hopes to draw the attention of viewers to the problem of the rapid disappearance of ancient cultures under the aggressive onslaught of modern civilization. In particular, the construction of a huge station dam, with the concomitant development of nearby territories and the violation of the integrity of the ecosystem, threatens the existence of the tribes of the lower reaches of the Omo River, who have inhabited the area for centuries and have long adapted to survive in difficult natural conditions. Their entire way of life, built in accordance with the natural cycle of the river, will be destroyed.
Portraits of the inhabitants of the Omo Valley provide the viewer with a rare glimpse into a closed, isolated world where representatives of a fundamentally different culture live, documenting key aesthetic differences, but at the same time showing that the basic components of human life are universal. Joy, fear, youth, pain, desire - these concepts do not change at all whether a person warms up frozen lasagne for dinner in the microwave, or a piece of fresh meat on the coals of a fire. Of course, photographs cannot literally tell the story of human life, but at least they provide us with a foreword.
Documentary photography always captivates with its truthfulness, but staged photo sessions can be no less sincere and informative. For example, a project by the famous Spanish photojournalist Christina de Middel talks about the failed space program of Zambia.
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