Magazines - Tribal Art Summer 2010

Interviewed by Joshua Dimondstein, Los Angeles based Tribal Art dealer.

Introduction
Mike Glad is an Oscar-nominated filmmaker and photographer who has spent many years traveling the world documenting the lives of the indigenous peoples he has encountered. His distinctive photographs have been garnering increasing attention and his unique process of colorization has been a subject of discussion.

How did you get involved in photographing tribal people?
After photographing Third World people for the first time in Guatemala, I found myself overwhelmed. I was moved by the poverty in which those people lived and struck by their apparent happiness, which was in stark contrast to their difficult lives. Soon after, I made a film called Recycled Life about the people in Guatemala City who live in and off of the city dump. This experience immersed me in the lives of these people and showed me their values and a sense of community that I rarely see in First World countries. There was a dignity and distinctive spirit of mankind. As a result, I went on to photograph tribal people in Mexico, Myanmar, Yemen, Pakistan, and Ethiopia, among other places.