Todays Photographer Crush belongs to Mattia Passarini, he focused in photographing the remote corners of the globe and the cultures that inhabit them. His passion in capturing disappearing cultures, ancient rituals, and everyday life leads him to travel to the most neglected countryside areas. In recent years he focused his research on their varieties, locations, habits and especially on their visible distinguishing features, which they express through face tattoo and body modifications. Mattia was the Third place winner in the People category in the National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year Contest 2016, for a photo called "Remote Life at -21 Degree, depicting an elderly woman carrying a big log back home to warm up her house in a remote village in Himachal Pradesh, India.
When I was a little girl, my father was subscribed to National Geographic, it was one of my first introduction to diversity and culture outside my bubble in the island of Puerto Rico. Growing up, imagining people living in a very different world from mine, fed my wanderlust. Today, looking and admiring photographers as Mattia Passarini, take me through a journey in remote places that I didn'tt know existed.
I will always be thankful for my father, and for him having a subscription of National Geographic, which taught me the wonders of the world and that we are not alone, there is diversity, different cultures, religions, ethnicities, things that makes us unique...but at the end, we are all humans with the same home, The World.
"Diversity of cultures is the differences that exist between factors around the world. There are traditions and cultures that have survived for thousand of years and now, in just one generation everything can disappear. I feel lucky to be one of the people that can still see and experience these diversity." -Mattia Passarini
Hope you had a great weekend!