It is not true that indigenous peoples are about to die out. Save our Sentinels. Secondly, to carry on enthusing and inspiring the people in the developed world as to how valuable these people and their culture are. Photograph: © Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV I then earned a little bit of money and, with that money, I left again – and that’s essentially how I started [a career in photojournalism]. The furthering of the project – having produced a book and exhibitions, and having an online forum – is extremely rewarding. And what can be done about it? Of digital cameras, Jimmy Nelson says, "invariably, you never really make that true contact" with the subject. Capt. Having spent 10 years at a Jesuit boarding school in the North of England, he set off on his own to traverse the length of Tibet on foot. In early 1994, together with his wife, he produced 'Literary Portraits of China' showing the world unknown corners of the newly opened People's Republic. What are your current projects?I’ve already started work [on a follow-up book]. And when that contact is made, and they can see that you are very vulnerable, and that they can do whatever they want with you, then you start introducing what you have in your box – this old camera – then you start focusing and, eventually, making the pictures. Jimmy Nelson is a British photographer with over 30 years of experience. How do you gain your subjects’ trust?Essentially, I don’t take pictures; there’s no showing of any cameras. Between 2010 & 2013 Jimmy Nelson travelled the world to document some of the most fantastic indigenous cultures left on the planet today. Jimmy Nelson makes his living seducing tribes. That “process” went on for a year and a half. Photography by Jimmy Nelson: © Before They Pass Away by Jimmy Nelson, published by teNeues, £100 ($122) – also available as a small-format edition, collector’s edition and collector’s edition XXL. Jimmy Nelson and Fishing with Luiza travel the world fishing and diving in beautiful tropical locations, just "Livin the Dream". The journey lasted a year and upon his unique visual diary, featuring revealing images of a previously inaccessible Tibet, was published to wide international acclaim. In a way, you start worshipping them, acknowledging them. The work became an iconographic document of humanity from a particular perspective. Jimmy Nelson (Sevenoaks, Kent, 1967) started working as a photographer in 1987. That’s because I left photojournalism and moved into commercial photography. The catalyst was generated by my own interest, and also the interest of other people. During his career, he visited many remote places of the world and photographed the exotic indigenous tribes he met. At the same he started accumulating images of remote and unique cultures photographed with a traditional 50-year-old plate camera and awards International exhibitions and acclaim created the subsequent momentum and enthusiasm for the initiation of Before they Pass Away in 2010. Nelson was married to his wife, Ashkaine Hora Adema for 23 years, and as of 2018, they separated. I was also inspired by someone who’s been a hero of mine for about 30 years – the 20th-century American photographer Edward Sheriff Curtis. While other Westerners see novelty in native tribesmen, Nelson sees beauty. We have a big, old Zodiac [boat] that we like to get out into the sea. The more difficult the situation, the more remote, the more isolated, the colder, the more the connection was made – Jimmy Nelson. SAVE OUR SENTINELS. You end up taking thousands! }); the book has been published is the enormous enthusiasm many people in the world seem to have for this approach to the subject matter, and how humbling and exciting that is. If everything goes well, it will be published in 2018, and will feature another 35 different indigenous cultures and groups around the world – combined with returning to some of the places I’ve already been to. I didn’t go to Tibet to meet the Dalai Lama, or because I knew where it was, I just wanted to fit in. Jimmy Nelson (Sevenoaks, Kent, 1967) started working as a photographer in 1987. I wanted to go somewhere on the planet where I could find empathy with people who looked like me. The episodes of 'Jimmy goes live' are from now on available on YouTube. Photograph: © Jimmy Nelson Pictures BV I find the humanity that turns up there every July and August extraordinary – as a contemporary tribe. When he left school in 1985, the teenage Nelson promptly went traveling – trekking the length of Tibet – before embarking upon his career in professional photography. Since 1987 he has travelled the world as a photographer, visiting places such as Tibet, Afghanistan, Kashmir and the former Yugoslavia. It’s something I’ve felt for many years, but could, never put into a visual form or structure. We also have a house in Ibiza. The journey lasted a year and upon his return his unique visual diary, featuring revealing images of a previously inaccessible Tibet, was published to wide international acclaim. Jimmy Nelson (Sevenoaks, Kent, 1967) started working as a photographer in 1987. In a photographic journey that has seen him travel the globe, Jimmy Nelson has documented some of the world’s most remote – and endangered – indigenous tribes. The first picture I published was when I was 19; I subsisted from photography up to the age of about 24; after that I began making a half-decent living out of it. Nelson is currently based in Amsterdam, where his company Jimmy Nelson Pictures B.V. is located. I would like to do that in Ibiza. Sometimes they’re very happy I’m not around, and sometimes they miss me. Relationships with hither to unknown and understood communities in some of the farther most reaches of the planet. This year, the photographer published his second book featuring the tribes titled Homage to Humanity. What do you like to do when you’re not behind a camera?We spend time in Ibiza; I spend a lot of time in the water. I think, in hindsight, my hair fell out due to three factors: stress; I had cerebral malaria; and I was given the wrong medicine. In 1992, Nelson was commissioned by Shell to produce the book Literary Portraits of China. How did the idea for the work originate?From having spent the whole of my life traveling; seeing the extreme changes and how change was speeding up, due to the digitalization of the modern world. How did such an itinerant childhood shape you?Although I was unaware of it at the time, my nomadic childhood – seeing the contrast between the developed and the undeveloped world – had a huge impact on me. There’s sometimes an element of anger. As was a very self-indulgent wish to essentially paint these people with a camera, in a way that I’d never seen before; I felt they’d all been filmed and photographed before, but not “put upon a pedestal” of beauty, of iconography. Capt. I’d visited most of the places I went for the project as a child; revisiting them as an adult – and seeing the speed with which these particular tribes or cultures were abandoning their heritage – was an important factor.