Renowned photographer and traveler Ingetje Tadros began a global photographic sojourn at seventeen. Leaving behind her small hometown of Bleiswijk in the Netherlands, she ambitiously set out to travel the planet. Over the course of 35 years of regular travel, she has visited more than 45 countries across six continents, all the while capturing striking images of the world’s tribal people, and of lives and places that exist in relative obscurity. Her photography offers the viewer genuine moments of humanity and stunning expressive form.
Whether she is photographing people in a market in a village in India, or during a festival , Ingetje is always fully engaged with the people she encounters. The viewer never has the feeling she is pickpocketing people’s private sacred moments to enthrall us with mere cultural novelty. Her photographs neither intend to shock nor illicit sympathy; therefore, we can visually engage with Tadros’ subjects without the distortions imposed by a disparaging fog of pity. Through her great skill and sensitivity, she enhances our perceptions and engages us with the unfamiliar, enabling us to cast off our engrained, divisive tendencies – the formidable mental barriers that alienate “us” (the urban, economically-advantaged) from “them” (indigenous people and the world’s chronically poor and vulnerable).
In March of 2011, Ingetje published her first book, Tribal Ethiopia – a testament of her passion for documenting tribal people and championing issues of social justice. The book’s 286 photos document the indigenous tribes of the Omo River Valley and their plight as people threatened with the of loss of their ancestral homeland and economic livelihood to modern development; a proposed massive hydroelectric plant project would eventually flood their valley.
Over the course of her career she has been a volunteer photographer for the Amsterdam World Museum and a travel consultant for Nouvelles Frontieres. Ingetje currently freelances in Australia. She is also a prodigious contributor to world-renowned Getty Images (Creative and Editorial), AuroraPhotos and is a stringer for Demotix. Recently she signed a contract as Free Lance photographer with The Wideangle. She currently lives in Broome in Western Australia where she and her Egyptian-born husband own and run a Middle Eastern restaurant that also serves as an informal gallery for her work. She travels as much as she can in between running a busy restaurant.
Enjoy!