honorable mention
Jacopo Maria Della Valle italy
title
Discovering China
The “Rice Growers” picture was born near the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, where women belonging to Bai, Naxi and Yi ethnic tribes still harvest rice by hand. They wear their characteristic clothes and load heavy baskets full of rice on their shoulders, singing traditional songs.
In “Cormorant fisherman” the subject is Mr. Huang, one of the few remaining master fishermen in Guilin. Started by his older brother, he has been fishing with cormorants since he was 8 years old. We met at sunset in the picturesque setting of limestone mountains reflected in the Li river.
"Rural life" picture was inspired by the magnificent panorama of the karstic hills rising from the mist and the green rice fields outside Yangshuo.
“Soul’s mirror” was taken during my trek along Longji rice terraces, when I stopped in a Yao village and I met Mrs. Pan and her husband. They invited me to see their characteristic Yao house and offered me tea and a snack of cucumbers.
"Yang Yi Ting" was a girl belonging to the Long Horn tribe who lives in the mountainous areas of Guizhou. She was wearing the typical traditional headpiece based on wool, horn and ancestral hair.
My work would be the evidence of a rural China which still survives industrialization and modernization.
I graduated in Scenography at the Accademia delle Belli Arti with honors and I developed a great passion for travel photography. I traveled throughout Europe, in the United States, Cuba and Morocco before starting my reportages along Asia: I went to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, China and India. Fascinated by Asian culture and guided by the readings of Tiziano Terzani, I always tried to get in touch with the local populations to know - and experience - their characteristic uses, customs and traditions, avoiding the superficiality of the tourist traps. For this reason I embarked on long journeys to discover different Asian ethnic minorities, who live in tribes that are difficult to reach and that still survive globalization.
Among all pictures I prefer the portraits, because they give me the chance to capture the history and the deeper essence of the people in front of me. There are people with whom I shared a lot and others with whom there was only a brief meeting, but in all situations I used the camera to make a connection with the other and to try to represent the soul through a poem of colors. In fact, it’s the camera that I often use to communicate with people so distant from us, who do not speak our own language but are so rich in curiosity and emotions.
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entry description
These pictures were taken in 2018 in China, between Yunnan and Guizhou, where I went in search of the chinese ancient traditions, increasingly rare but not yet completely lost.The “Rice Growers” picture was born near the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, where women belonging to Bai, Naxi and Yi ethnic tribes still harvest rice by hand. They wear their characteristic clothes and load heavy baskets full of rice on their shoulders, singing traditional songs.
In “Cormorant fisherman” the subject is Mr. Huang, one of the few remaining master fishermen in Guilin. Started by his older brother, he has been fishing with cormorants since he was 8 years old. We met at sunset in the picturesque setting of limestone mountains reflected in the Li river.
"Rural life" picture was inspired by the magnificent panorama of the karstic hills rising from the mist and the green rice fields outside Yangshuo.
“Soul’s mirror” was taken during my trek along Longji rice terraces, when I stopped in a Yao village and I met Mrs. Pan and her husband. They invited me to see their characteristic Yao house and offered me tea and a snack of cucumbers.
"Yang Yi Ting" was a girl belonging to the Long Horn tribe who lives in the mountainous areas of Guizhou. She was wearing the typical traditional headpiece based on wool, horn and ancestral hair.
My work would be the evidence of a rural China which still survives industrialization and modernization.
about the photographer
I was born in Rome in 1979 and I was passionate about photography and reportage from an early age. I started shooting during my second grade with the Fujica ST701 belonging to my father, who liked films and trasmitted this love to me.I graduated in Scenography at the Accademia delle Belli Arti with honors and I developed a great passion for travel photography. I traveled throughout Europe, in the United States, Cuba and Morocco before starting my reportages along Asia: I went to Japan, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Myanmar, China and India. Fascinated by Asian culture and guided by the readings of Tiziano Terzani, I always tried to get in touch with the local populations to know - and experience - their characteristic uses, customs and traditions, avoiding the superficiality of the tourist traps. For this reason I embarked on long journeys to discover different Asian ethnic minorities, who live in tribes that are difficult to reach and that still survive globalization.
Among all pictures I prefer the portraits, because they give me the chance to capture the history and the deeper essence of the people in front of me. There are people with whom I shared a lot and others with whom there was only a brief meeting, but in all situations I used the camera to make a connection with the other and to try to represent the soul through a poem of colors. In fact, it’s the camera that I often use to communicate with people so distant from us, who do not speak our own language but are so rich in curiosity and emotions.
back to gallery