Photojournalist portraits of vanishing Surma tribe. Printed on canvas. Shot in July 2018, over a month in Ethiopia.

"I wanted to photograph lost tribes because there are not many places where these are left in the world. There’s the Amazon and Papua New Guinea, and in the Omo River valley in Ethiopia and South Sudan. I wanted to show their innocence, to tell their story and to show the beauty of how they live together. The women look after each other – they cook together and all care for the children. They just have one blanket they use as a skirt and bedding. There are no schools, no shoes, no pens and papers. The people paint their faces and bodies with clay as it protects them from the sun and mosquitoes as malaria is rife. Also because of superstition – they say you should paint your face every day to protect them. They start painting their faces from an early age. The young women wear lip plates and ear plates. The reason is that the Spanish used to steal the women during slavery days. So the women would deform their faces to be less attractive so they wouldn’t be taken as slaves. But today it’s considered beautiful and the bigger the plate, the more cattle the family are paid when they marry off their daughter."

Nadine Saacks