Harmut Schwarzbach (51) studied photography in Dortmund, Germany, is now based in Hamburg, and works as a photojournalist for 'Argus Fotoarchiv', a photo agency specialized in environmental and humanitarian issues. Since 2000 he has traveled to many Asian and African countries, working on a long-term project on children's rights. He uses the medium format camera for portraits and the 35mm for reportages and street-photography. Most of the assignments he covers are for the German magazine 'Der Spiegel' and the magazine 'Continente'.
Hartmut has won many prizes, and with this series of photos - taken on Smokey Mountain - he almost won the Sony World Photography Awards 2009. He was one of the finalists, but the jury in Cannes decided to pick someone else at the last moment. Nevertheless it is a very special reportage featuring the children on the dumpsite.
Hartmut: "You need a lot of time for a good photo-story. I've spent years getting to know the people on Smokey Mountain." Together with his guide, Harmut often gave food to the families, and paid school fees for the poorest children. This eventually brought about a breakthrough and he saw the children start to enjoy being photographed.
Many thanks to Hartmut for giving us permission to publish his photos on the Young Focus website.
N.B. Please respect the rights of the photographer and do not use these photos without his permission.
In the interests of privacy, the names of the children have been changed.
Click on the photos below to enlarge and for a description.
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