var advanced_ads_pro_visitor_conditions = {"referrer_cookie_name":"advanced_ads_pro_visitor_referrer","referrer_exdays":"365","page_impr_cookie_name":"advanced_ads_page_impressions","page_impr_exdays":"3650"};
var essb_settings = {"ajax_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","essb3_nonce":"043acf6db1","essb3_plugin_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-content\/plugins\/easy-social-share-buttons3","essb3_stats":true,"essb3_ga":false,"essb3_ga_ntg":false,"blog_url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/","post_id":"128411","internal_stats":true};
In 2009, a photographer set about a unique journey. A journey with an intent to document as many isolated civilizations and cultures as he could. Through his project, called Before They Pass Away, photographer Jimmy Nelson wanted to capture the lives and traditions of the last surviving tribes around the world.
Jimmy wanted to create a piece of work that would remind the future generations of these societies, their distinctive lifestyles, art and traditions. Spending about two weeks with each of the 35 tribes he visited, he witnessed and became acquainted with their time-honored traditions, joined in their rituals and discovered how the rest of the world is threatening to change their way of life forever. Speaking about his work, Jimmy says, “Most importantly, I wanted to create an ambitious aesthetic photographic document that would stand the test of time. A body of work that would be an irreplaceable ethnographic record of a fast disappearing world.”
Jimmy Nelson traveled for about 3 years and his journey took him to remote corners of Ethiopia, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Tanzania, New Zealand, Mongolia, Siberia, Nepal, China, Vanuatu, Argentina, Ecuador, Namibia, India, Chukotka and Indonesia. His detailed portraits, created with a 4×5 camera, showcase jewellery, hairstyles, clothing, and cultural elements unique to each tribe. Here is a small selection of images from his journey.
This article features just a small selection of photographs from Jimmy's travels. You can purchase his book, Before They Pass Away, published by teNeues, to see 500 of his best photographs in print. You can also stay updated about this project through Jimmy Nelson's Facebook page.
Ritesh has been photographing since 2010 and his photographic interests have varied from nature and landscapes to street photography. You can see his photography on Flickr or on his website.
These are beautiful. I only have one question. I have spent quite a bit of time in Tibet and the people in the “Tibetan” picture do not look like any Tibetans I have ever seen — a reaction confirmed by several Tibetan friends. Even the robes are different. It is a lovely photograph but where was it taken?
Hi, Anne. Thanks for your comment! You can see Jimmy’s photographs from Tibet here, including the one shown in the post above: It has information on the photo but doesn’t mention where exactly it was photographed. Cheers!
really enjoyed these photos, some of them look like paintings. A great collection of Tribes.
Thanks for such a beautiful expression of the gracefullness of humanity!!!xxx
Is this available in book form? How could I buy it ?
Wow, the Maori girl is so very beautiful.
My thanks to Jimmy are most sincerely and richly deserved. I can not thank him enough, because after seeing these portraits, my heart now speaks a different language about photography.
I started viewing this page thinking that perhaps I might see some images of inidividuals who are isolated from the rest of humanity. Instead I find photos of people, some from remote and some from well-populated areas.
Where are the photos of the reclusive Amazonian tribes who eschew all contact with outsiders? Those people are truly isolated. It would be a major coup to photograph them!
var advanced_ads_cookies = {"cookie_path":"\/","cookie_domain":""};
var advadsCfpInfo = {"cfpExpHours":"3","cfpClickLimit":"3","cfpBan":"7","cfpPath":"","cfpDomain":"www.lightstalking.com"};
var beloadmore = {"url":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","query":{"post__not_in":[128411],"category_name":"photos","posts_per_page":3}};
var tve_dash_front = {"ajaxurl":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","force_ajax_send":"1","is_crawler":"","recaptcha":[],"post_id":"128411"};
var TVE_Ult_Data = {"ajaxurl":"https:\/\/www.lightstalking.com\/wp-admin\/admin-ajax.php","ajax_load_action":"tve_ult_ajax_load","conversion_events_action":"tve_ult_conversion_event","shortcode_campaign_ids":[],"matched_display_settings":[],"campaign_ids":[],"post_id":128411,"is_singular":true,"tu_em":"","evergreen_redirects":[]};
(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/lib/modules/conversions-pro/assets/share-conversions-tracker.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/modules/pinterest-pro.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/modules/subscribe-forms.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();(function() { var po = document.createElement('script'); po.type = 'text/javascript'; po.async=true;; po.src = 'https://www.lightstalking.com/wp-content/plugins/easy-social-share-buttons3/assets/js/essb-core.min.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(po, s); })();
let ccwpDOMLoaded=!1;
let ccwp_loaded = false;
let resources_length=0;
let resources =undefined;
let is_last_resource = 0;
ccwpUserInteractions=["keydown","mousemove","wheel","touchmove","touchstart","touchend","touchcancel","touchforcechange"];
ccwpUserInteractions.forEach(function(e){
window.addEventListener(e,calculate_load_times);
});
function calculate_load_times() {
// Check performance support
if (performance === undefined) {
console.log("Performance NOT supported");
return;
}
// Get a list of "resource" performance entries
resources = performance.getEntriesByType("resource");
if (resources === undefined || resources.length <= 0) {
console.log("NO Resource performance records");
}
if(resources.length){
resources_length=resources.length;
}
for(let i=0; i < resources.length; i++) {
if(resources[i].responseEnd>0){
is_last_resource = is_last_resource + 1;
}
}
let uag = navigator.userAgent;
let gpat = /Google Page Speed Insights/gm;
let gres = uag.match(gpat);
let cpat = /Chrome-Lighthouse/gm;
let cres = uag.match(cpat);
let wait_till=300;
let new_ua = "Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 11; moto g power (2022)) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Mobile Safari/537.36";
let new_ua2 = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10_15_7) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/109.0.0.0 Safari/537.36";
if(gres || cres || uag==new_ua || uag==new_ua2){
wait_till = 3000;
}
if(is_last_resource==resources.length){
setTimeout(function(){
console.log("ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts timeout : "+wait_till);
ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts();
},wait_till);
}
}
window.addEventListener("load", function(e) {
console.log("load complete");
setTimeout(function(){
calculate_load_times();
},100);
});async function ccwpTriggerDelayedScripts() {
if(ccwp_loaded){ return ;}
ccwpPreloadStyles();
ccwpPreloadDelayedScripts();
ccwpLoadCss();
ccwpScriptLoading();
ccwp_loaded=true;
}
function ccwpPreloadStyles() {
let e = document.createDocumentFragment();
var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("link[rel=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].href = removeVersionFromLink(cssEle[i].href);
let r = document.createElement("link");
r.href = cssEle[i].href;
r.rel = "preload";
r.as = "style";
e.appendChild(r);
}
}
document.head.appendChild(e);
}
function ccwpPreloadDelayedScripts() {
var e = document.createDocumentFragment();
document.querySelectorAll("script[type=ccwpdelayedscript]").forEach(function(t) {
var n = removeVersionFromLink(t.getAttribute("src"));
if (n) {
t.setAttribute("src", n);
var r = document.createElement("link");
r.href = n, r.rel = "preload", r.as = "script", e.appendChild(r)
}
}), document.head.appendChild(e)
}
function ccwpScriptLoading(){
var jsEle = document.querySelectorAll("script[type=ccwpdelayedscript]");
jsEle.forEach(function(t) {
t.type = "text/javascript";
if(t.src)
{
t.src = removeVersionFromLink(t.src);
}
});
}function ccwpLoadCss(){
var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("link[rel=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].href = removeVersionFromLink(cssEle[i].href);
cssEle[i].rel = "stylesheet";
cssEle[i].type = "text/css";
}
}var cssEle = document.querySelectorAll("style[type=ccwpdelayedstyle]");
for(let i=0; i <= cssEle.length;i++){
if(cssEle[i]){
cssEle[i].type = "text/css";
}
}
}
function removeVersionFromLink(link)
{
if(ccwpIsValidUrl(link))
{
const url = new URL(ccwpFormatLink(link));
url.searchParams.delete("ver");
url.searchParams.delete("time");
return url.href;
}
else{
return link;
}
}
function ccwpIsValidUrl(urlString)
{
if(urlString){
var expression =/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]{2,256}\.[a-z]{2,4}\b(\/[-a-zA-Z0-9@:%_\+.~#?&//=]*)?/gi;
var regex = new RegExp(expression);
return urlString.match(regex);
}
return false;
}
function ccwpFormatLink(link)
{
let http_check=link.match("http:");
let https_check=link.match("https:");
if(!http_check && !https_check)
{
return location.protocol+link;
}
return link;
}
8 Comments
These are beautiful. I only have one question. I have spent quite a bit of time in Tibet and the people in the “Tibetan” picture do not look like any Tibetans I have ever seen — a reaction confirmed by several Tibetan friends. Even the robes are different. It is a lovely photograph but where was it taken?
Hi, Anne. Thanks for your comment! You can see Jimmy’s photographs from Tibet here, including the one shown in the post above: It has information on the photo but doesn’t mention where exactly it was photographed. Cheers!
really enjoyed these photos, some of them look like paintings. A great collection of Tribes.
Thanks for such a beautiful expression of the gracefullness of humanity!!!xxx
Is this available in book form? How could I buy it ?
Wow, the Maori girl is so very beautiful.
My thanks to Jimmy are most sincerely and richly deserved. I can not thank him enough, because after seeing these portraits, my heart now speaks a different language about photography.
I started viewing this page thinking that perhaps I might see some images of inidividuals who are isolated from the rest of humanity. Instead I find photos of people, some from remote and some from well-populated areas.
Where are the photos of the reclusive Amazonian tribes who eschew all contact with outsiders? Those people are truly isolated. It would be a major coup to photograph them!