Since 1991, Franco Zecchin has spent a long time working on the nomads. These Indians are the eighth population he's visited. He explains to me that these natives continue to keep a spirit that identifies them with their roots, and with regard to the authorities and the government they have fighting attitude. They are not a all resigned. Seeing him so relaxed worries me. Does he stay in contact with Paris, with his family, with his friends when he travels afar? "I always have a little radio with me in order to listen the international news... And then, in the capitals now it's easy to phone or e-mail. Of course, the nomads are not close to the capitals or the great buildings of the cities. But I follow the nomads in their activities. I move with them. What I like of them, the nomads, is the authentic and simple relationship that they develop. And then I love to come face to face with other cultures, other descriptions of the world, other ways of perceiving things. It gives a relativity to my personal vision of the world." It is a question of balance? "No, it's not a question of balance, rather the opposite. I'm looking to unbalance myself, I put myself in critical situations. I throw open the debate on this system of values that is linked to departure, to all that is making-believe in travelling. I close a door behind me and I don't know what is going to happen. I seek as if it were the last journey". When Franco travels, he takes a few books with him. And he write a notebook. Technical notes. Addresses. Timetables. For him, travelling precede photography, but that doesn't mean that he want to go everywhere. That doesn't interest him, he adds, you only live once and you have to be selective. I think that it's safe to say that Franco Zecchin is a very determined man. What's more powerful Franco, the journey itself or the idea of travelling? "I search out of this disruption because I consider it to be vital, this upheaval that forces me to keep moving mentally. It's not necessarily the journey that attracts me, but the idea of re-inventing yourself day by day or living with an awareness of existing. For me, it's also related to photography. To be ready to react to outside visual stimuli. But it's possible to travel in your own neighbourhood... I started travelling before becoming a photographer. Photography is a very good pretext and also in a certain sense something which gives a result". Does he feel alone in his work? "People, in general, like what I do and encourage me to continue. What you have to know is what your aim, your ideal in life is. For example, for me, worldly success is not important, but you can loose yourself as well in your day to day needs. My ambition is to have, in the end, results that will remain with time and that are not related to the moment's fashion. Photography should speak for itself. I have no ideas, I tunes myself in to the immanence in order to be both the exterior and the interior of myself". Facing Franco Zecchin is not a demanding task. And it's just this that is rather rare, this feeling of being an equal, knowing that there is nothing at stake, and above all no wheeling and dealing. Emotionally or ... socially or ... romantically. It's matter of sharing a little time in the present moment, absolutely nothing in the scale of interplanetary relations, and all as we were naturally drawn together, as if we had always known each other. When "Chroniques Siciliennes" (Sicilian Chronicles, with Letizia Battaglia, 1989 Paris, Centre National de la Photo) was published, the photographs gave out such violence and a violence of such purity that I was taken aback. And from that moment I felt an intense admiration for these two reporters who had had, I don't know if the word seems shocking, the guts, or sufficient determination to follow their suject to the very end, without weakening (and despite the threats). FRANCO ZECCHIN: The Man of Great Determination by Brigitte Ollier.
The agility of nomad society, hits ability to integrate different-- cultures without losing their own, is a cultural strength.
ZEF0029890 © Franco Zecchin
The Bedouin hospitality rule: to offer coffee to any new visitors. To adapt to their harsh environment they followed a fairly consistent pattern of migration reinforced by tribal custom and desert economy.
ZEF0029897x © Franco Zecchin
Tin Zawatine refugee camp, Algeria. Touareg woman in childbirth.
ZEF0029887x © Franco Zecchin
A Moken woman walking in the village.
ZEF0029892x © Franco Zecchin
A Barabaig woman with her child.
ZEF0029906x © Franco Zecchin
Spring Festival. Lassos are made of reindeer hide.
ZEF0029905x © Franco Zecchin
Touaregs widows from Azawad. Every day new people arrive in the camp, escaping from the Bambara reprisal. The touaregs have nothing; they left the Azawad only with their clothes losing tents and animals. Alimentary and sanitary problems increase quickly.
ZEF0029886 © Franco Zecchin
A child playing with boots. Rain, more often than not, is in the form of cloudbursts falling in limited areas, causing flash floods in some of the wadis (dry riverbeds).
ZEF0029899x © Franco Zecchin
A family into the ger. The Mongols herd five different animals: horses, cattle (which includes yak), camel, sheep and goats. Mongolia, Aïmak Central
ZEF0033507 © Franco Zecchin
Child playing with a bird.
ZEF0029893 © Franco Zecchin
The urga is a long, flexible pole with a rope loop on one end. The loop is dropped over the head of the horse that the herdsman wants to separate from the rest of the herd - a technique requiring great dexterity and horsemanship. Mongolia, Aïmak Central
ZEF0033509 © Franco Zecchin
Nomads are moving to another camp. North of Oualata, Mauritania
ZEF0029891 © Franco Zecchin
Pause during the hunt. If in ancient times the bow and arrow, the lance, the corral and the noose were commonly used to kill the caribou, today it is essentially the gun.
ZEF0029902 © Franco Zecchin
The capture of a turtle is a solemn moment of village life. Children are dragging the 200 kg turtle just caught in open sea.
ZEF0029888x © Franco Zecchin
Plane transport. Once, it took many weeks of travel by canoe to reach the hunting grounds. However, the Innu populations are today very damaged by “civilisation”, although this process is relatively recent; it dates from the 1940s.
ZEF0029901x © Franco Zecchin
The village assembly. The Barabaig have existed on the same common pastures for hundred of years without destroying them.
ZEF0029907 © Franco Zecchin
Fishing with a narrow-meshed net. A true nomad is a poor nomad. Poverty is accepted, even asserted. They use environmentally friendly methods, rejecting fishing techniques that might put their ideology in danger.
ZEF0029889x © Franco Zecchin
Camp N. 5, Sakkyryr. A dead deer. The reindeer are constantly on the move in search of food. The snow protects the fragile moss from destruction by hooves and feet, but leaves it accessible to a deer's foraging snout.
ZEF0029904x © Franco Zecchin
Boy with chicken. In socio-economic terms, the Barabaig is proof that the reduction of their resource base by land alienation is being reflected in a decline in cattle numbers and a worsening in the quality of their lives.
ZEF0029909x © Franco Zecchin
Children's chores begin at an early age. They learn to ride almost as soon as they can walk and, while still young, assume responsibility for the herding of the sheep and goats. They also help in collection of animal dung that will be dried for use as fue
ZEF0033525 © Franco Zecchin
Raissa Dimitrivna at work in the local administration office. Herding used to be a family activity, but now women and children are almost entirely absent. Even women mainly work in the growing service sector in the village.
ZEF0029903 © Franco Zecchin
Girls during a Lochmadjega ceremony. Mureru village is the centre of Barabaig life and culture.
ZEF0029908x © Franco Zecchin
A girl with sheep, South of Safawi, Jordan. For the pragmatic Bedouin, sheep and goats have become a preferred form of wealth through which he somewhat maintains his traditional way of life hence achieving much needed psychological and social satisfaction.
ZEF0029898 © Franco Zecchin
Children playing Mokinda drums. In addition to its function in very precise social activities, music also gives daily expression to the mood of the moment. Thus, some of the chants which one might supp
ZEF0029900x © Franco Zecchin