Photographer Brent Stirton

Brent Stirton is a Senior Photographer for Getty Images, based in New York. His award-winning work has been widely recognized for its powerful depiction of issues related to conflict, health and environmental issues. Stirton specializes in documentary work and is known for his alternative approaches to photojournalism, including lighting portraiture in the field, and his prolific work rate. He travels an average of nine months of the year, working exclusively on commissioned assignment.

Stirton’s work has appeared in Newsweek, National Geographic, CNN Traveler, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post Magazine, The Sunday Times magazine, Le Monde 2, GQ, Geo and many other respected international titles. He also writes a blog for the Discovery Channel.

In working to visually interpret a story, Stirton often works in tandem with journalists from the world’s leading publications. In the last two years he has worked regularly with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and Anderson Cooper on topics such as the tsunami disaster or religious fundamentalism, compiling still documentaries on tropical news events which are then voiced over and aired.

He works extensively on humanitarian issues including HIV/AIDS, environment, poverty, conflict and post-conflict recovery, and women’s empowerment issues. Stirton works on a regular basis for the Global Business Coalition against AIDS and The Global Fund against AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He also works in the field for sustainability for The World Wide Fund for Nature, shooting global campaigns on the relationship between people and their environments. He also has worked for the Ford Foundation and the Clinton Foundation.

Stirton has won numerous awards and recognitions for his work, including five awards from the World Press Photo Foundation; in 2007 he was cited as a “Hero of Photography” in PopPhoto Magazine. Stirton holds a degree in Journalism from his native South Africa, where he began his career photographing apartheid issues.

Brent Stirton took some amazing photographs of the Omo Valley Tribes in Ethiopia:

In the sprawling, desolate Southern Omo River Valley region of Ethiopia are several tribes living as they have for centuries, in voluntary isolation from the modern world. Recently, however, the tribes – Dassanech, Mursi, Hamar, Karo, Bume, Beshadar and others – are under increasing pressure from the outside world. Most recent is the Omo River dam project to provide hydroelectric power to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. This will reduce the river to one-fifth its size and eliminate the flood plain so valuable to Omo Valley tribal farmers. The geographically distant government in Addis Ababa appears to place little importance on the threat to these unique Omo Valley cultures, and the days of their existence as intact cultures are numbered.

My trip to the region was two weeks in duration, starting midway through December 2007. The purpose of the trip was to make color portraits as part of a worldwide project on diminishing/disappearing cultures…