The Human Encounter | Documentary Project Ethiopia

Ethiopia 2025 – The Human Encounter
Documentary Photography Project
A long-term documentary photography project exploring daily life, dignity, and human connection through quiet visual encounters in southern Ethiopia.

This body of work was developed during repeated journeys in the Omo Valley among the Suri, Mursi, Hamer, Arbore, Nyangatom, and Ari communities. The photographs do not aim to describe cultures in an ethnographic sense, but to create moments of presence — suspended instants in which two gazes meet with mutual awareness and consent.

The camera is never used as an instrument of capture, but as a tool of relation, built through time, waiting, and trust. The work deliberately avoids the spectacular. What emerges instead is the fragile tension of the encounter, the density of a gesture, the quiet force of a gaze. Each portrait is the result of a shared moment, never staged, never taken without permission.
Post-production follows the same ethical discipline: minimal, essential, reduced to what is strictly necessary to preserve the integrity of light, skin, and expression.

This work is part of The Human Encounter, an ongoing research on presence, identity, and the fragile boundary between the observer and the observed.

Portrait of a Suri woman holding her child, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Suri woman with child, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a young woman from the Hamer community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Hamer community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a woman from the Mursi community wearing a traditional lip plate, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Woman, Mursi community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of two men from the Mursi community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Men, Mursi community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a woman from the Hamer community wearing traditional adornments, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Woman, Hamer community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a young woman from the Nyangatom community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Nyangatom community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Portrait of a young woman from the Suri community with traditional body painting, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Portrait of a young woman from the Suri community wearing traditional adornments, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Portrait of a young woman from the Suri community with traditional body painting, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Portrait of a young woman from the Suri community with traditional face painting, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Portrait of a man from the Karo community with traditional body painting, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Man, Karo community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a young man from the Karo community holding a machete, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Young man, Karo community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a woman from the Arbore community wearing traditional adornments, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Woman, Arbore community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white portrait of a woman from the Suri community during a daily moment, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Black and white profile portrait of a woman from the Hamer community wearing traditional adornments, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025.

Woman, Hamer community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

Young woman, Suri community, Lower Omo Valley, Ethiopia, 2025

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