Human Planet

Gathering Content
Separating into sections, a A3 duplex page for each different area.
Timothy Allen Photographer of Human Planet
bbc world news
A Year On The Road
Reddit: Timothy Allen
My last project involved spending 2 years traveling with BBC film crews during the production of 'Human Planet'. I have spent a fair bit of the last 20 years on the road, visiting over 50 countries. Whenever I have the choice, I travel as a backpacker. I am 40 years old.

Sulphur Mining: East Java

The traditional sulphur miners of East Java bear the scars of their labour - poisoned lungs and skin criss-crossed with burns and scars.Several hundred men work in the heart of Ijen volcano in East Java, Indonesia. Each day, they collect yellow lumps of sulphur that solidify beside its acidic crater lake. Once processed, the sulphur is used to bleach sugar, make matches and fertiliser, and vulcanise rubber in factories at home and abroad.

Bajau fisherman: Sea Gypsies in Malaysia
The Bajau people, sometimes known as the sea gypsies of Malaysia and Indonesia, are renowned natural freedivers. Traditionally, they are born, live and die at sea, and fish by diving 20m (more than 65ft) underwater for minutes at a time on one breath. At this depth, water pressure is almost three times what it is on the surface, squeezing lungs already deprived of oxygen.

Male Beauty Contest named Gerewol: edge of the Sahara
Tall, slim, facial symmetry and good teeth - this could be the universal tick list of a beauty pageant judge. And when the contestants are men, their faces painted with red, white and yellow clay, the aesthetic holds true.

Sea Nomads: Solomon Islands 
PHOTOGRAPHS: James Morgan

The Coral Triangle - stretching from the Solomon Islands to the waters around Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines - is the global centre of marine biodiversity, according to the environmental group WWF. Photojournalist James Morgan is working with WWF, and spent eight months getting to know the Bajau Laut community - who for centuries have lived at sea, but are now being encouraged to settle on land and join the monetary economy. Hear from him - and see how the Bajau are having to adapt.

Beautiful Science

CONTENT?

The School Run: Zanskar, Ladakh, Indian Himalayas
Walking to Leh (5 Days): Ladakh, India
Rivers Zanskar’s mountainous landscape is an unforgiving place in winter. Temperatures can plummet to minus 40 at night and avalanches are a frequent occurrence. In Zanskar the communities are strong and warm.  A knock on a stranger’s door will always result in food and a bed for the night, such is the way of their mountain culture.

Sulphur Miners: Mount Ijen, West Java, Indonesia

Residents of Java are well accustomed to the presence of volcanoes in their lives. Take a dawn climb to any one of the island’s 40 or so peaks, and a glance to either the east or the west of you will normally reveal a scene worthy of the set of Jurassic Park as you will see a line of prehistoric chimney tops trailing off into the distance above the early morning mist.

Sing Sing: Papua New Guinea
Mount hogan sing sing jungles

The cults focused mainly on magical rituals designed to imbue the tribes with the material wealth they saw belonging to the foreign visitors, believing that it was intended as gifts for them by their own particular deities and gods.

Guarding Crops: Simien Mountains, Ethipia
mountains

In Ethiopia’s Simien mountains we were filming farmers who grow their crops on the incredible steep slopes you can see surrounding our camp above.  If working on a sheer cliff wasn’t enough, they also had to fend off the many packs of  devious resident Gelada Baboons, hell-bent on stealing their barley before they managed to harvest it.   It was a beautiful camp, even if we did need to keep one eye out for our mischievous neighbours.

  

Camel Herders: Gobi Desert, Mongolia
desert

Man on a Wire: Mekong River, Laos
Rivers

Allow me to introduce you to Samnieng… that’s him in the middle of the picture on his way to work on a typical Monday morning in August.  He lives about a kilometre from this spot on the wrong side of the river from his place of work which lies on a small island amid the mighty Mekong river of Laos in the area known locally as Siphandon, or The 4000 Islands.  Actually, Samnieng’s walk to work every day is not as unique as you may imagine in this part of Laos despite the obvious severity of the journey.  

Raindeer,Rain and Rivers: Northern Norway, Arnoy Island.

We join the Sami people of Arctic Norway at an intense time of year: for the next 2-3 weeks the Sami will be herding their reindeer, who have been roaming free for the summer, down from the snow dusted mountains and preparing them for crossing open waters in search of winter pastures. 

UrbanSafari: Mombassa, Kenya
Urban

Walking around this waste land, I am reminded once more that mother nature is not prejudiced. Scavenging at a dump is an environmental niche that she invites all species to inhabit, our own included.  

Nomadic Family: Mongolia

Herding Wildstock: Mongolia
Grasslands

Moving Camp in Winter. Rural Mongolia certainly contains some of the friendliest, most cheerful people I’ve ever met on my travels around the planet, and I’m sure that their easy and regular access to horse riding has had something to do with that.

Honey Gatherers: Central African Republica
Honey you trill me
Jungles

Golden Eagle Hunter: Mongolia
Mountains
From sandy desert to lush grasslands and now to the snowy Altai mountains in the far west, I have arrived at a remote Kazakh community that is home to amongst others, Mongolia’s fabled eagle hunters.

Pa-aling Divers & Fishermen: Philippines

Oceans

I’m back on terra firma now with a fresh case of land sickness after our amazing time at sea.

Sea Gypsies: Sabah Malaysia
Skin Diving:The Nomads: Sabah Malaysia
Oceans

These dwellings belong to amongst others, Bajau sea gypsies who have chosen to live a sedentary life, renouncing their nomadic existence on ocean boats in favour of a front door and neighbours.

Children catching Tarantula's: Venezuela
Jungles

Donga: Ethiopia

In Southern Ethiopia, witnessing a Suri stick fight or ‘Donga’ was one of the most awe inspiring public displays of aggression I think I’ve ever seen.  Stick fighting is a brutal sport there is no doubt, but when you see it in the flesh, you realize that it is a very fair and honest way of testing the physical and mental ability of a man. 

Whale Hunting: Lembata, Indonesia
Oceans
With simple wooden boats and hand-made weapons, the whalers of Lembata seem ill-prepared for the 8 hour battle, but the whale slowly tires and a final cut through its backbone is made.

Living Bridges: Meghalaya, India
Rivers

A few years ago during a bout of backpacking in India I heard about Megahalaya‘s living root bridges from a fellow traveler I had met in Darjeeling.  Although he confessed to never actually going there himself, he said he had heard from another person that the area called the East Khasi Hills was a fascinating and under explored place. 

Hunting with Dolphins: Laguna
Oceans

In Laguna local fishermen have built up an amazing relationship with wild dolphins.... The dolphins have learnt to corral shoals of fish towards the fishermen who wait in shallow water. When they throw their nets at a precise moment they catch some fish for themselves whilst the rest retreat back into the mouths of the hungry dolphins. It's a beautiful partnership that is mutually beneficial for both man and dolphin.

Hunting a Narwhal, Northern Greenland
Arctic 
Ice Fishing
Arctic 
Catching Birds, Greenland
Arctic
Catching a greenland shark with Dogs, Greenland
Mussel Gatherers
Arctic 


Bats, New Guinea Highlands 
Mountains. 


Collecting Barnacles, Galician cliffs, Northern Spain
Ocean
Killing a shark, Islands of Papua new Guinea, 
Oceans

Fish Frenzy, Lake Antogo, Bamba, mali
Deserts 
Digging for Water in the Algeria 
Desert

Hunting Snakes: Grasslands
3 men and lions grasslands
Kalahari Bushmen, Grasslands, Kalahari Desert, Kalahari CBDC, Zimbabwe
Honey Guide, east africa, Grass lands

35m Treehouse,Papua  Jungles 
Monkey Hunting Jungles .....Matties of brazil Brunei

Elephant in the Jungles, Neighbouring Burma and India
Jungle