Stephen Ferry – PicturaPixel

I’ve written before about the work of Stephen Ferry, particularly in an extended review of his fine book ‘I am Rich Potosi’.

Now you can see his pictures and hear him talking on PicturaPixel about two projects from Columbia. One on the Sierra Nevada, taken for National Geographic, which looks at the concern the indigenous Tayrona people, guardians of the mountain have about the melting of the snow, and the warning they want to send to the rest of the world. It isn’t just the scientists that can see the warning signals about global warming.

Ferry first went to Columbia in 1995 to teach a workshop, and the pictures the participants brought made him aware of the civil war that has been going on for 40 years, in part a class struggle. His pictures try to show the complex nature of the struggle and the fear it engenders, with almost every family having members who have been killed or injured. But throughout he is impressed by the rich culture, particularly music and dance of the Columbian people. The pictures are intense and emotional in their use of colour.

Both projects are superb examples of contemporary colour documentary photography – don’t miss them.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.