Amazonian Tribe Photography

French photographer Phillippe Echaroux has produced an emotional project with an Indian tribe from the Amazonian rainforest. The street photographer was keen to publicise the difficulties these tribes face as a result of the environmental impact our modern society has on their forest.

So, he happily accepted an invitation from the tribe leader of the Suruis tribe to live amongst them as long as he wished whilst he carried out his work. His aim: to show the harmony between human and nature that exists in this society and encourage others to understand the love and tenderness they have for their environment and take it into their own lives.

His medium: projected photography. Echaroux decided to take portraits of many members of the tribe to then project onto the rainforest itself, thus juxtaposing human and forest and highlighting the harmony in which they live. An added feature of this type of medium was the ethereality and zero environmental impact of the project; the photographer did not wish to hypocritically create large installations from raw materials to then destroy afterwards.  

So, Echaroux projected immensely sized portraits of these incredible people onto the Amazonian rainforest itself in what was an incredibly beautiful and touching homage to the simple, traditional and happy lives they lead. The visual effect was astonishing, and the images below will give you an idea of the elegance, class and scale of this project, as well as a sense of the pride the photographer successfully instilled in this Amazonian tribe as a result.

There is also a video here, which I have to warn you is in French (and so is great brushing up for any Francophones), but is worth a watch even without understanding the dialogue; it is of secondary importance to the tangible, visual emotions of the tribe members and their joy at seeing their faces projected onto their beloved trees.