Jimmy Nelson

Nelson says, "The foundation has evolved into teaching indigenous peoples’ pride. I'm creating many teams to go off around the world and do what I do. We’re gathering [pictures, video and other information] and creating a digital fireplace, sort of like a library in the sky, of all this heritage for future generations."

The Foundation's most prominent project involved a collaboration with J. Walter Thompson India and J. Walter Thompson Amsterdam. The campaign opened with a short film, titled Blink. And they’re gone., made using more than 1,500 photographs taken by Nelson during his travels. The film took 90 days to edit, and includes images of the Huli Wigmen from Papua New Guinea, the Kazakhs of Mongolia, the Sadhus of India, the Wodaabe from Chad and a number of other cultures. The film was directed by JWT India's chief creative officer, Senthil Kumar in Mumbai, working closely with J. Walter Thompson's global creative lead, Bas Korsten.

Nelson defended his work against the criticism of Survival International in a BBC interview, explaining, "The pictures are definitely arranged. People don't naturally stand under a waterfall at 7 am waiting for the sun to rise, unless you ask them to. I’m presenting these people in a way that hasn't been done before. We present ourselves in the developed world in a very idealised, stylised way because we believe we are important. I’ve given them the time, the respect that we would give ourselves..."

In September 2018 Nelson published his third book, Homage to Humanity. The book consist of over 400 photographs of 30 indigenous cultures, interviews with tribal members, infographics on the portrayed locations and cultures, as well as an application which incorporates 360° film material connected to the pictures, behind the scenes videos and background information regarding the travels.

Papuan tribal leader Benny Wenda has also criticized Nelson for describing his tribe as "headhunters", when in fact the Dani have never practised cannibalism. Mr Wenda said: “The real headhunters are the Indonesian military who have been killing my people. My people are still strong and we fight for our freedom. We are not ‘passing away,’ we are being killed by the brutal Indonesian soldiers. That is the truth.”

The Jimmy Nelson Foundation is a nonprofit organisation founded in 2016 to stimulate cultural expression by facilitating projects that promote the heritage of indigenous cultures.

Nelson's work has been the subject of much criticism from a variety sources, including the very people he photographs and represents in his book. In June 2014 Nelson's project Before They Pass Away came under attack from Stephen Corry, director of Survival International , the global movement for tribal peoples’ rights. In a review titled "Turning a Blind Eye to Pure Old Vibrations" published on the Truthout website, Corry attacked Nelson's work for presenting a false and damaging picture of tribal peoples. Corry maintained that Nelson's pictures bore little relationship either to how the people look now, or to how they've ever appeared.

With his last project, Homage to Humanity, Nelson claims to have listened to the criticism. 'Before They Pass Away' sparked what was sometimes quite a positive but otherwise heated conversation... In Homage to Humanity I wanted to give more of a voice to the subjects—their dreams and their opinions and their worldview."

Nelson's work has also been criticized for harmful inaccuracies and generalizations, which Nelson uses to make himself and his photography look good, but which harm the cause of the tribal people he is using. Julia Lagoutte writes in the OpenDemocracy: "It is simply not true that tribal people have been "unchanged for thousands of years"; they have been evolving constantly, as we have. It is clear that for Nelson, their attraction and purity is rooted in their exclusion from the future, and their containment to the past – so that is the only reality he presents in his photos. By omitting their interactions with the ‘modern world’ that they are a part of, and perpetuating the myth that they are dying out, Nelson's work freezes tribal peoples in the past and effectively denies them a place in this world."

In in 2010, Nelson started to work on his second book, Before they Pass Away.

From 1997 and onwards, Nelson began working in the commercial advertising field. During this time, he continued collecting images of remote and isolated cultures.

In 1992 Nelson was commissioned by Shell Oil to produce the book "Literary Portraits of China". He travelled across the country for 30 months, together with his then wife, Ashkaine Hora Adema, who participated in the making of the book, and became the subsequent business partner of Nelson.

In 1985, at age 17, he left his boarding school and started to trek the length of Tibet on foot. He took a small camera on his trip and photographed his journey, which lasted about two years. Upon return, the collection of pictures he had taken in the formerly inaccessible country were published by the English National Geographic, to wide international acclaim.

James "Jimmy" Philip Nelson (born 1967) known professionally as Jimmy Nelson, is an English photographer. He is known for his portraits of tribal and indigenous peoples.

James Philip Nelson was born in 1967 in Sevenoaks, Kent. He spent his childhood in Africa, Asia and South America, traveling around with his father, who worked as a geologist for International Shell. At the age of 7, he was sent to Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit boarding school in Lancashire, UK. When he was 16, he suffered from Alopecia totalis, a condition in which all the hair falls out, which was caused by a culmination of stress and a reaction to malaria medication.