Before they pass away: Jimmy Nelson at TEDxAmsterdam

The British travel photographer started his career in 1987 on a journey across Tibet to find himself. From that moment on Jimmy Nelson set out to document the world's last indigenous cultures, which are rapidly disappearing.

He has photographed 35 unique tribes across 44 countries and recorded them in his book Before They Pass Away. At TEDxAmsterdam, Jimmy shares his stories about the connections he made and the lessons he has learned on his journeys.

Produced by: http://www.fellermedia.com Camera & Crew: http://www.hoens.tv

Good morning everybody.
As you just heard,

my name is Jimmy Nelson
and I work as a photographer

Firstly I'd like to say how fantastic
it is to be here today,

in front of you all, especially
as I live around the corner

for the last 15 years and I never,

in my wildest dreams, have expected
to stand here before you.

I'm going to take you on a journey

so sit back for the next 12 minutes
and enjoy.

Where are we? Where am I,
more to the point?

I'm in far northern Mongolia,
on the border of Russia

in the middle of winter, and I'm cold.

I'm struggling. I'm lost. I'm lonely,

I'm isolated and disorientated
and to be honest,

I've essentially lost track of
what I was trying to do.

My intention was
to photograph the "Tsaatan"

The "Tsaatan" are reindeer herders
in northern Mongolia

and they're one of the last group of
indigenous cultures that live there.

But for one reason or another,
my intention, and the wish, the way

I wanted to photograph them
is just not succeeding,

I cannot connect, it's impossible.

So invariably every night,
we ended up in a teepee

and everybody is sleeping
and eating around one another

and they often offered me vodka.

I'm a little bit of a prude
as I'm not too good with alcohol.

But that night, I said, "Bring it on".

So I started, and before I knew it,
I was wildly drunk.

But it was heaven, I was warm.

And I fell into a deep alcoholic coma.

Middle of the night, full bladder,

I'm sure most of us
have experienced this before,

I need the loo, but I could hear
this raging blizzard going on outside.

Like all these 30 sleepy
Tsaatans around me

and I didn't want to wake them.

So I thought, I'm smart,
I'm drunk, but I'll be okay.

So I'm going to roll discreetly
to the side of the tent,

I'm going to lift it up and
have a little of a pee outside

and not going to wake anybody.

So off I went on my alcoholic journey.

Off to the side, lift the tent,

took my gloves off,
start to undo my fly...

Half way through I realised I had
eight different layers to go through.

Layer five, layer six,
layer seven, layer ah boom!

I peed. It was far too late.
My fingers were frozen.

I lost it. I peed all over myself,
and all over the tent.

But it's okay, it's alright!

They're all still asleep.
Nobody's woken up.

So nobody's going to know and

it's going to freeze
within seconds anyway.

Off I started rolling
to the side of the tent,

and I fell back into my alcoholic stupor.

Two minutes later, there is absolute pandemonium

and the tent collapses

There's a stampede of reindeer
all over the tent,

about 40 of them.

And there's almost a fire, because
we have a small fire going in the middle.

And everybody screaming and yelling

and I'm running backwards up
this hill, not knowing what's going on,

still drunk, and before I knew it,
40 reindeers start coming towards me.

They start licking me,
from head to toes.

(Laughter)

I'm still drunk,
it's the middle of the night

and I had no idea what was happening.

And then slowly, slowly through
the garrick I see in the distance

people starting to laugh.

One after the other, they all
started to laugh and pointing

there in hystericals laughing at me,

being licked by all these reindeer,
going backwards up this mountain,

in the middle of the night in a storm.

What actually turned out was
that reindeer love salt.

They don't have any
for 11 months of a year

because of the snow and the ice.

So any form of salt they can
get hold of, they go for.

And that's why they went for me.

(Laughter)

The most beautiful thing
that happened,

the most unsuspected,
unexpected thing

was that I made friends in a way.

I made a connection through laughter

by making a complete and
utter fool of myself, unintentionally.

The next day, and the days thereafter,

the relationship became
warmer and warmer.

And I was able to achieve
the beginning of the photography

that I was trying to make.
It was a fantastic, humble experience.

But let's begin with why I was
in northern Mongolia 4 years ago

with frozen underwear.

I have to take you back a little bit.

Here I am at the age of 7.

I've been travelling with
my parents as an expat kid.

For many years, my father worked
for International Shell.

And they decided I have to go
to boarding school.

They get me a bag,
a little British Airways bag,

a passport and a ticket
and they send me off.

So for the next years I travel
backwards and forwards to my parents

wherever they were over the planet.

And at the age of 16, returning
from one of my journeys from Africa,

I was ill, I had cerebral malaria

and to be very honest, I think
I was also stressed

and a little sad
to be leaving my parents.

I was at school, and one day
the doctor gave me some medicine

which turned out
to be the wrong medicine

and the next morning,
I woke looking like this.

All my hair fell out.

It's a term called
"alopecia totalis"

And I was confronted --
this is a few years after 16 --

but the difference is quite profound.

I didn't change, I was the same person.

But how people started
to treat me changed.

That was a radical experience.

To realise that how you look
can influence everything.

So after a couple of years,
I finished school

I've had enough,
I said I'm taking myself away.

I'm going to the one place
on the planet

where all the people are bald,

shaved-headed to be honest.

And that was Tibet,

and I decided, unintentionally,

I walked from one length
to the other

and on that journey
I started making pictures.

But the real journey was
that I was trying to find myself.

And many many many years later,
working as a photographer,

to be honest, the real journey
only started to begin 4 years ago.

That's in a way when
I truly found myself.

I took myself off on a project.

I decided I want to photograph
35 of the world's last cultures

as art, as icons.

And on that journey,
something happened,

something very profound,
it went far beyond photography.

I started to learn lessons.

And three of those lessons
I'd like to share with you today.

The first lesson, I was in the Rift Valley.

far northern Kenya, although just near

the edge of lake Turkana.

And I'd like to show you
a picture and ask you a question

What do you see here?

I see three fantastic, beautiful,
elegant, tall people

standing proudly in the landscape
overlooking a valley.

Often people say "they're women!"

I say "Well look closer."

They're men, they're not only men,
they're warriors

They're Samburu warriors

and next to that, they can kill lions
with their bare hands.

When lions attack their camels,
they go at them and they kill them.

So here you are, with these fantastically
beautiful, tall, elegant, effeminate --

they spend half the day running
around, looking in mirrors,

playing with their beads and
their hair and their skirts,

but on Sundays they go out
and kill lions with their bare hands.

So what am I trying to say?

Look closer. Look closer.
We in the developed world

are very comfortable with
our prejudices, with our judgements.

Look closer because you never know
what's around the corner.

Often things can be very different
than they seem to be.

The second lesson was one of choice.

I'm now in Chukotka, I didn't know
where it was either.

It was in far far northeastern Russia,
in Siberia

So the very end of the planet.

I'm looking for the Chukchi, the Chukchi
are the last Russian Eskimos.

So we arrived. We rented a tank.
We got a guide.

A Chukchi guide. We said
"When do we find them?"

He said "I don't know, it'll take
a while if we find them at all."

I'll sit on the roof,
it's minus 50 ° Centigrade,

and we are going to follow
the reindeer droppings.

Fine by me. Off we go.
Weeks and weeks later,

literally, often with
the cold coming in,

minus 50° outside,
it was invariably minus 40 inside,

we eventually found them.

It was the most
extraordinary experience

I've never experienced anything
like that in my life,

to be at the end of the world, and
eventually find the world's last people.

There they were, the Yarangas.

These fantastic tents in the distance,
made out of reindeer skins.

We got out of the tank and
these people enveloped us

They bought us in, and within seconds,
we were part of their community.

No names, no where, no what,
no why, you're one of us

and we're going to look after you.

Because it's cold and you'll die
if you don't listen to us.

After a week,
we started the conversation.

I turned to ask them
"Why are you living here?"

How did it come to be that
you're living at the end of the world?

They said, "You know we chose,
we chose to be here."

I said "How can you choose to be here?"

They said "Not so long ago,
we were taken to a city

and given an apartment block.

There we sat, there we drank
and we watched television.

We became very very sad. We started
not seeing our children,

not seeing our old people, and
we decided we are going to change,

we are going to go back to
where we came from.

Because there we were happy,
there we could feel how we were.

And here we couldn't.

So what am I trying to say?

Even at the edge of the world,
if you dare feel, yourself,

if you dare feel the environment
you live in, if you dare feel one another,

you'll know what will make you happy
and you'll have a choice.

Like these people did.

And the last story, lesson I'd like
to share with you,

is in way northwestern Mongolia,
the Altai Mountains

with these Hollywood heroes of mine,
the Kazakh warriors,

with these fantastic eagles
with 5-metre wing spans,

travelling across these mountains

And for years I dreamt of making
pictures of these people.

So off we went on another
one of my little jimmy exhibitions,

start climbing in the mountains
and there we're standing

with these cinematographic vista
behind me with these 3 proud warriors.

I'm getting excited,
it's early in the morning,

I stupidly, again, I still haven't
learned my lesson,

take off my gloves, and
I go for my old camera.

My fingers freeze to it,
I panicked I ripped them off

and I ripped this finger, I'm in pain,
I'm in so much pain,

I started to cry.

I started to cry because
I was emotionally upset,

I was physically absolutely exhausted

and I couldn't feel my fingers anymore.

There before me was this image I'd
spend my whole life wanting to make.

And I couldn't make that picture.
So I was stressed,

in the most extreme way.

I turned around,
behind me were 2 women

who'd followed us up the mountain.

One of them beckoned me over and
I sort of stumbled over like a spoiled child

screaming "Oh my fingers, my fingers!"

She opened her jacket and
she grabbed me and she hugged me

and the other woman came from behind
and they rocked me like a baby.

And they rocked me to and fro
and sang me a song.

(Laughter)
(Applause)

To say, I started walking
down the mountain,

I got my pictures,
which you have just seen,

selfish as always, and
it was only then I realised

that these people,
this is an Islamic culture,

traditional Islamic culture, these people
broke down all their values,

all their culture, to help me.

So by being vulnerable, by letting go,
by being falible,

you can connect with people
on any level.

So what am I trying to say?

I've given you 3 lessons
of experiences I've had

whilst making these photographs.

First the lessons on judgement.
Be careful

when you look and judge somebody,
it's often different.

The second is choice.
We all have a choice.

No matter what it is.

Thirdly, I genuinely believe,
by truly being vulnerable,

by truly feeling who you are
and letting go,

wherever you are on the planet,
and people often ask me,

how on earth you communicate
with these people?

By truly becoming naked,
-- in a metaphorical way,

don't get me wrong! --

you can communicate
and get what you done.

So what am I trying to say
with these lessons?

We have to wake up

We have to start documenting
these cultures, very very quickly.

Because they are going to disappear.

As soon as they disappear,
we will lose something

which is very, very,
very important to us

It's our authenticity,
it's where we came from.

It's our origins.

They will change, they will evolve,
so we can't stop them.

But we have to start a dialogue,
we have to start a new conversation

in how to access the information,

what we can teach them and
what they can teach us.

How I would like to do that
is revisit them

with a book that myself
and my team have just made,

I'd like to present it to them
and show them why I was there,

why I was running around screaming
like a baby without gloves on,

why was peeing my pants,
why I was making them

into the icons which
I hope they now see.

With that a message in
what they can learn from us

in my opinion and cultural,
and anthropological mistakes we made

and vice versa, what can we
learn from you and your way,

and your purity and
your autenthicity and your beauty.

By doing that, with this dialogue,
I want to re-address the balance,

a balance which I feel we have lost,

with this project of mine,
before they pass away.

Thank you very much for listening.

(Applause)