People: Travel (AMATEUR) - HONORABLE MENTION
The Naga of Burma
Photo © Guillaume Petermann
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The Naga of Burma - Myanmar (Burma) - Naga New Year Festival - January 2013
In Myanmar, around 120,000 people live in the northwestern hill tracts, in the the Naga Self-Administered Zone within the Sagaing Region. The Naga people are a conglomeration of several tribes inhabiting the North Eastern part of India and north-western Burma.
There have been many attempts to explain how the ancestors of Naga arrived in the hills they now occupy, but so far no satisfactory explanation has been put forward. The absence of written records means that there is no way to coroborate and given hypothesis about the origins of Naga.
For the last fifty years, an intermittent struggle waged by Naga separatists has rendered their region inaccessible to outsiders.
In recent years, a tenuous cease fire has allowed some groups of outsiders to visit certain areas of the Burmese Naga Hills on specific occasions, in particular for the Naga New Year festival.
Now it is to be hoped that the prime focus of the festival will remain centered on the participants and their desire to retain their own particular identity within the Burmese emerging national spirit. There is a real danger that this festival became over commercialised and, by emphasising the exotic elements at the expense of understanding the particular custom observed, lose the essential meaning and purpose of the occasion, that this is primarly a festival for the Naga themselves and not for the tour operators.
Very early, I studied photography and graphic arts and turned to photography as a means of expressing my creativity, which finally transformed into a lifelong passion.
My biggest hobby is travel. Iam fascinated by the world, in particular the people that live in it.
Thus since 2006, I travel around the world in search of emotions and intimate atmosphere to let the viewer travel very far and discover other cultures and other peoples.
Iam fascinated by stories. Iam interest by the history, geography, geopolitics. The topics of anthropology, ethnology such as the human place in nature, the meaning of civilization and progress. Iam also interest by the topics of war, uprising, social movements, gender…
I strive to create images and material that demand consideration for the lives of those depicted. I believe that intimate, sensitive photographs leave indelible marks on the people who look at them.
I want to share exceptional and intimate moments where nature and men offers virgin. My photographs are intended to reveal the soul of the land and the people. They aim not only to show, but to reveal. Not only appear but to transfigure!
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The Naga of Burma - Myanmar (Burma) - Naga New Year Festival - January 2013
In Myanmar, around 120,000 people live in the northwestern hill tracts, in the the Naga Self-Administered Zone within the Sagaing Region. The Naga people are a conglomeration of several tribes inhabiting the North Eastern part of India and north-western Burma.
There have been many attempts to explain how the ancestors of Naga arrived in the hills they now occupy, but so far no satisfactory explanation has been put forward. The absence of written records means that there is no way to coroborate and given hypothesis about the origins of Naga.
For the last fifty years, an intermittent struggle waged by Naga separatists has rendered their region inaccessible to outsiders.
In recent years, a tenuous cease fire has allowed some groups of outsiders to visit certain areas of the Burmese Naga Hills on specific occasions, in particular for the Naga New Year festival.
Now it is to be hoped that the prime focus of the festival will remain centered on the participants and their desire to retain their own particular identity within the Burmese emerging national spirit. There is a real danger that this festival became over commercialised and, by emphasising the exotic elements at the expense of understanding the particular custom observed, lose the essential meaning and purpose of the occasion, that this is primarly a festival for the Naga themselves and not for the tour operators.
About author:
Iam a French photographer based in Strasbourg, France.Very early, I studied photography and graphic arts and turned to photography as a means of expressing my creativity, which finally transformed into a lifelong passion.
My biggest hobby is travel. Iam fascinated by the world, in particular the people that live in it.
Thus since 2006, I travel around the world in search of emotions and intimate atmosphere to let the viewer travel very far and discover other cultures and other peoples.
Iam fascinated by stories. Iam interest by the history, geography, geopolitics. The topics of anthropology, ethnology such as the human place in nature, the meaning of civilization and progress. Iam also interest by the topics of war, uprising, social movements, gender…
I strive to create images and material that demand consideration for the lives of those depicted. I believe that intimate, sensitive photographs leave indelible marks on the people who look at them.
I want to share exceptional and intimate moments where nature and men offers virgin. My photographs are intended to reveal the soul of the land and the people. They aim not only to show, but to reveal. Not only appear but to transfigure!
BACK TO GALLERY