Text and Captions of Leica Cameras : José Manuel Serrano Esparza.
Pictures and Captions : Alessandro Cinque.
BIRTH OF THE PROJECT AND REASONS TO DEVELOP IT
Drone view of a mine in El Espinar (south of Peru). More than 40 % of the district´s territory has been granted to foreign mining companies by the government, deeply affecting the life of the indigenous population with heavy metal contamination of water, which kills cattle, harms agriculture and has brought about a lot of illnesses to local inhabitants, birth defects in new babies and abundant deaths. Year 2021. Drone DJI Mavic Air 2 with 24 mm f/2.8 lens. 2021. f/2.8 at 1/1600 s. ISO 100.
© Alessandro Cinque.
In 2017, after having studied at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York, the Italian photographer Alessandro Cinque decided to leave its home country and go to The Andes mountain range in South America, living in five different countries (Peru, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador and Bolivia) to get immersed in a fascinating long-term photographic project called " The Price of the Land ", elaborating on the impact of large scale mining on the indigenous peoples, their lands, rivers and cattle, which are polluted, degraded and constantly killed because of the toxic heavy metals poured into every nearby aquifer by the huge mineral exploitations, exclusively driven by ruthless eagerness and the top priority of obtaining all the feasible economical benefit, though it can mean the destruction of local dwellers, animals and all kind of cultivations making up the traditional way of living and culture of the native inhabitants of these territories, whose forebears have lived in them for many centuries.
Aerial view of La Oroya, small town in the Peruvian Andes, approximately 184 km in the northeast of Lima. It is considered one of the most polluted places in the world, according to Time magazine, because of the mining and meltering complex of the American company Doe Run visible in the upper right area of the image, which was placed just beside the 35,000 inhabitants of the village and is constantly liberating poisonous waste of lead, copper, zinc and sulphur dioxide, to such an extent that a World Health Organization study proved that the average lead levels in children under 10 were three times higher than the acceptable limits. 2020. Drone DJI Spark with 24 mm f/2.8 lens. ISO 100.
© Alessandro Cinque
This context presided by the exceedingly difficult coexistence between large mining companies from other countries and the indigenous populations (on whose lands those corporations have set up their huge and highly contaminating facilities), stems from the fact that the aforementioned five countries are very wealthy in copper, silver, lithium and gold.
Therefore, the ancient relationship and harmony between humans and nature is broken by this kind of neocolonialism, embodied by foreign mining firms exhausting the mineral resources of these Latin American countries,
Aerial view of the highly contaminated Trapiche River in Antofagasta de la Sierra, Catamarca Province (Argentina).The image shows how the flow of this river was interrupted by a dam built by a lithium mine operating in the zone, affecting the availability of water for the surrounding population, because most of it is now poisoned and can´t be drunk. 2023. Drone DJI Mavic Air 2 with 24 mm f/2.8 lens. ISO 100.
© Alessandro Cinque
in addition to obliterating all existing ecosystems, generating anemia, cancer,
Roxana, a young Peruvian girl with cerebral palsy as a consequence of the poisonous water created by the mine Antapaccay (operated by Glencore) and drunk by her mother during pregnancy, is physically crippled and spends her days inside a cradle at the Sagrada Familia special education center in Espinar (Peru).
© Alessandro Cinque
birth defects and death to the local inhabitants,
https://attachment.outlook.live.net/owa/MSA%3AHeinz.Richter1%40outlook.com/s
wreaking havoc on their farmlands,
killing livestock, eroding folklore and disrupting their spiritual and cultural ties.
© Alessandro Cinque
Besides, these big mining corporations leverage the poverty and necessity of the original dwellers of the drilling areas and its surroundings,
Daniel Quispe Bravo (19, on the left) and his brother Rodrigo (15, on the right) inside a mine in Potosí (Bolivia). Daniel started working in the mine when he was 12, and Rodrigo when he was 13, to help Juan Carlos Quispe, their father, now 52, who worked at the mine for 32 years and is now suffering from silicosis. Since their father can no longer work, both young brothers toil away to support the family. Besides, Felipa Quella Amamami, who worked in the Potosí mines for more than 55 years (she began being nine years old) regrets that nowadays the earnings of the Bolivian miners working hard and in dangerous conditions are often a miserable salary of 14 $ per week. 2023. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3. f/2 at 1/500 s. ISO 6400.
© Alessandro Cinque
using them as a very cheap labour working daily a lot of hours inside the mines, constantly risking their lives (these firms spend as little as possible in security measures, or they simply don´t exist) and for very low wages, most times in unhealthy conditions,
in such a way that vast majority of the indigenous miners suffer from the so called " mine disease ", that´s to say, silicosis, so their life expectancy doesn´t usually go beyond 65-70 years.
LEICA M9, M240, M10, LEICA Q1 AND LEICA MONOCHROM (TYP 246) AS CHOSEN PHOTOGRAPHIC TOOLS TO DO THE IMAGES OF THE PROJECT
According to his highly immersive photographic style as a visual story teller, making pictures from very near distances and striving upon capturing defining instants in an unobtrusive way, Alessandro Cinque has used five different 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder cameras to fulfill this photographic project, mainly the following ones :
Leica M9, the first digital 24 x 36 mm format rangefinder camera manufactured by the German photographic firm. Featuring a top-notch 18 megapixel Kodak CCD, it was used by Alessandro Cinque paired with a Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3, getting great image quality.
© Leica Camera AG
Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3 (1969-1979) featuring 6 elements in 4 groups and 8 blade diaphragm.
© Leica Camera AG
a Leica M9 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version III (1969-1979),
Top view of the Leica M10, another of the full frame cameras used by Alessandro Cinque, attached to a Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH.
© Leica Camera AG
Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH Version 1. Featuring 7 elements in 5 groups and 11 blade diaphragm, this wideangle photojournalistic lens par excellence was extensively used by the Italian photographer during the eight years making of " The Price of the Land " photographic project, yielding superb image quality thanks to its praiseworthy symbiosis with the full frame 24 megapixel CMOS digital sensor of the Leica M10.
© Leica Camera AG
a Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH (1996-2016),
24 x 36 mm format Leica Q (Type 116) compact camera with fixed Summilux 28 mm f/1.7 ASPH lens. It was often used by Alessandro Cinque, who took advantage of the exceptional image quality yielded by its highly luminous 11 elements (three of them aspherical ones) in 9 groups wideangle lens covering more field than a 35 mm prime.
© Leica Camera AG
and a Leica Q (Type 116) rangefinder-style camera featuring a 24 megapixel CMOS without anti-aliasing filter, electronic viewfinder and a fixed 28 mm f/1.7 ASPH lens throughout the eight years´ duration of this project.
The choice of these cameras was based on their amazing compactness and light weight for the full format digital sensor they boast, the whispering sound delivered by their shutter release button on being pressed, significantly enhancing discretion during the photographic act, the exceedingly short shutter lag, the crystal-clear optical viewfinder of the Leica M models and the excellent and very sharp EVF of the Leica Q (Typ 116).
It all in full symbiosis with second to none very small, light, and highly luminous lenses yielding extraordinary image quality at every diaphragm and focusing distance, with commendable uniformity of performance in center, borders and corners.
Therefore, all of these 24 x 36 mm format digital mirrorless rangefinder Leica cameras and the first-class lenses coupled to them,
Self-portrait of Alessandro Cinque with his digital Leica M9 rangefinder camera in Peru. 2017.
are the best photographic gear for the type of images created by the Italian photographer.
0.68x optical viewfinder coupled to the rangefinder of the digital Leica M9,
based on the 0.72x viewfinder of the analogue Leica M2 rangefinder camera ( 1958-1967) calculated by Willi Keiner, which is a masterpiece of optical and mechanical precision, and consists of more than 150 individual components.
© Leica Camera AG
And the Leica M9 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3 (manufactured between 1969-1979) and Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH Version 1 (manufactured between 1996 and 2016) prove that the M series of cameras and lenses continues to be now, in full digital age, a symbol of photographic excellence and uncompromising craftsmanship.
Something that has gone on for nothing less than seventy-one years hitherto since the introduction in 1954 of the legendary Leica M3,
© Leica Camera AG
created by Willi Stein (Ernst Leitz Wetzlar Chief Designer at the time)
© Leica Camera AG
and Hugo Wehrenfennig (who invented the Leica M four-pronged bayonet mount and the first lenses for it, including the first version of the famous Summicron 50 mm f/2), to such a degree that if you compare the analogue Leica M3 with all the saga of 24 x 36 mm format digital M rangefinder cameras made from 2009 until now, the precision, stability, reliable top-notch mechanics, elegance and timeless design keep on being essentially the same, with the German legendary photographic firm having achieved a seamless analogue / digital transition.
It all with the added benefit that every M lens manufactured since 1954 can be used with each one of the digital Leica M cameras and all the screwmount lenses made from 1925 through adapter.
A STRENUOUS EFFORT OF EIGHT YEARS
A long-term photographic project like " The Price of the Land " has meant to all intends and purposes a huge level of endeavour during eight years for Alessandro Cinque.
He had to learn a new language, walk unfamiliar landscapes, spend nearly all of his savings (until some grants and awards arrived) and coexist with indigenous peoples featuring different schedules, cultures, habits, religious beliefs, types of food and so forth, fighting tooth and nail to adapt to his new circumstances and beget a sincere rapport with them, something that he utterly achieved, through slog, a lot of sweat and an unflinching commitment to defend both their rights and ways of life.
Demonstration in Lima (Peru) made by families dwelling in Cerro de Pasco, a Peruvian village situated at a distance of 150 miles and where operates a transnational mining company, whose activity has prompted such environmental pollution in the area that 2,000 children have high lead levels in their blood. 2020. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH. f/2 at 1/45 s. ISO 3200.
© Alessandro Cinque
The upshot of it is that he has shared tough circumstances and very hard daily lives with the local communities of human beings living near the mining sites and suffering at every moment the environmental devastation, drying rivers (the huge mining facilities plunder in enormous quantities the water of the zone where they are placed to draw the minerals) and arid fields depleting their crops as a consequence of the lack of water used up by the mining, and could see firsthand and document how the very little water remaining for the original indigenous inhabitants has become poisonous and is full of heavy metals that enter their blood on drinking it, provoking anemia, respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses, lethal cancers,
Gremilda Delgado Martos is the only caregiver for her 22 years old daughter Selene Lizabeth, who was born with both mental and physical disabilities. After Lizabeth´s birth, Gremilda´s husband abandoned the family. While pregnant, Gremilda´s village of Choropampa, in northern Peru, was contaminated by a 150 kilograms mercury spill from a truck belonging to the Yanacocha mine in June 2000. That pollution from the spill was responsible for Lizabeth´s disabilities, as well as the health problems experienced by other children in the community. 2023. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH. f/5.6 at 1/125 s. ISO 400.
© Alessandro Cinque
birth defects and all kind of congenital abnormalities that local clinics can´t attend.
He has likewise been able to behold how those toxic waters are killing the cattle, other animals and all kind of plants, so agriculture and livestock raising, which had been the main survival sources for many centuries, can´t sustain these Andean communities any longer.
As a concerned photographer, Alessandro Cinque had to persevere and endure the sight of the lands of local indigenous populations being devastated by these huge mining excavations,
Aerial view of the mining and meltering complex in Espinar (Peru) in the background. As can be seen in the image, the large mine facilities were placed at very few meters from the 35,000 inhabitants of the village, with absolute disregard to their security and health, in addition to using up vast majority of the zone water, turning poisonous (with high levels of rather harmful heavy metals) the very little remaining water for the indigenous dwellers.
© Alessandro Cinque
more and more meltering infrastructures and toxic waste disposal sites everywhere.
Right off the bat, it was clear for him that vast majority of the things he photographed are a flagrant violation of human rights destroying the cultural identity of the peoples paying homage to the Pacha Mama, the Earth Mother.
On the other hand, it quickly dawned on him that as a consequence of the corruption of the local governments, the indigenous communities don´t receive any benefit of the foreign mining profits, so they go on living in extreme poverty.
VIDAL MERMA : A KEY FIGURE IN THE FULFILMENT OF " THE PRICE OF THE LAND PROJECT "
During the eight years of implementation of " The Price of the Land " photographic project by Alessandro Cinque, there has been a fundamental person to its completion :
Vidal Merma, an independent Peruvian journalist and documentary film maker, bilingual in Spanish and Quechua, with extensive reporting on mining conflicts and human rights in the province of Espinar, Cusco (Peru).
He has been collaborating with Alessandro Cinque during eight years and has worked with RPP Noticias, Ojo Público and The Pulitzer Center.
He has produced documentaries such as " Espinar Rises Up " and " Wing of Dust ", winner of the 2023 Student Academy Award.
And as educator, he shares his ethical and also immersive approach with new generations of journalists, telling complex stories with respect.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC PROJECT FIRMLY ROOTED IN THE BEST TRADITION OF PHOTOJOURNALISM AND CONCERNED PHOTOGRAPHY
Bernardo Sarabia Flores, 60, President of the Torata Alta Irrigation Comission in the Peruvian region of Moquegua. A transnational company operates a copper mine near Sarabia´s community, which used to rely on agriculture and livestock, specially thanks to the high quality of its avocados. But in recent years, avocado trees, which need a lot of water, have been dying, affecting the local population´s sources of income. 2021. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3. f/16 at 1/4000 s. ISO 100.
© Alessandro Cinque
" The Price of the Land " by Alessandro Cinque is a towering documentary project unwaveringly rooted in the foremost tradition of concerned photography as an optimum medium to record the human condition and all kind of injustice or reprehensible facts systematically violating the human rights, a picture taking scope embodied by well-known figures like Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Eugene Smith, Cornell Capa, Werner Bischof, Jean-Philippe Charbornier, Sebastiao Salgado and others, who showed in their work a humanitarian impulse to create social awareness about the plights suffered by human beings all over the world, presenting them in their everyday surroundings and doing their best to denounce those shameful contexts, trying to prevent their recurrence and searching for social justice and a more humane world.
In this regard, from a conceptual viewpoint, " The Price of the Land ", presenting the unacceptable and struggling to change it, is highly related to Eugene Smith´s " Minamata " milestone photographic project, covering the industrial mercury poisoning of that Japanese city in early seventies by the very wealthy chemical company Chisso pouring its harmful wastes into the sea and turning the fish toxic, with utter disregard to the health of the human beings living in the area.
And some crippled Latin American boys and girls with birth defects (because of the poisonous waters generated by the large mining companies and drunk by their mothers during pregnancy) photographed by Alessandro Cinque and appearing in the book, resemble the famous image " Tomoko Uemura in Her Bath " (1972) and others made by the American photojournalist in Japan in early seventies.
Needless to say that the book " The Price of the Land " exudes in every page a tremendous level of commitment and manifold great sacrifices made by its author, whose photographic approach is not only immersive to spare, but particularly humanitarian, unveiling a hard-hitting documentation of communities dramatically affected by the unscrupulous policies of large mining corporations which from their very arrival worsen very much the standard of living of the human beings dwelling the areas where they install their facilities to draw minerals.
PHOTOGRAPHIC STYLE AND TECHNIQUES USED BY ALESSANDRO CINQUE
Alessandro Cinque´s style stays true to the classic photojournalism and documentary photography made with Leica rangefinder cameras from very near distances.
Anyway, though he excels capturing defining instants, he doesn´t consider himself a photographer depicting decisive moments at any context and time.
Lucio Humanes Fernández lives near the Antapaccay mine (operated by Glencore, a powerful company that has brought large stretches of land to create massive mining complexes) in Espinar (Peru). The intense vibrations of the explosions in the mine are slowly destroying his house. By dint of perseverance and sincere infatuation with these indigenous people, living side by side with them for years, the Italian photographer could gain their utter trust and have access to their homes.
© Alessandro Cinque
The gist of his way of getting pictures is fundamentally based on the confidence gained with the human beings he photographs, and that is something that can be only achieved with time and mutual respect.
It is only after having built the adequate bond with the persons he photographs when he can shoot, capture and preserve the remembrances, igniting dialogues and consciousness.
Therefore, he is more a photo documentalist and humanist who has created an unutterable work that goes far beyond the usual scope of a photobook.
After an accident in the road connecting Sicuani with Espinar (Peru), a truck loaded with highly toxic heavy metals has overturned, spilling its very poisonous content into the soil, which has been contaminated. Images like this epitomize the hard and very risky lives endured by the local indigenous inhabitants of the areas where mining sites are placed.
© Alessandro Cinque
Because " The Price of the Land " is a living archive and an uncompromising chronicle against neocolonialism of mining firms only aiming at getting their maximum possible economic benefit, even if it must be done at the expense of destroying to great extent the lives of the indigenous population living in the areas where they make their mineral drawings.
And for the fulfilment of this goal, the Italian photographer develops the working way inherent to the best tradition of long-term photographic projects (embodied by well-known photographers like Harvey Stein, Alessandra Sanguinetti, Bruce Davidson, Jane Evelyn Atwood, Sebastiao Salgado, Chris Steel-Perkins, Mary Ellen Mark, Joel Meyerowitz, Greg Constantin, etc) : before shooting, there is a very long preparation, to such an extent that many of the pictures being shown in the book " The Price of Land " are fruit of previous weeks, months and often years, coexisting with different indigenous peoples, talking to them, keeping tabs on their daily lives, sharing their difficult existence and helping them, as well as understanding their cultures and traditions.
Of course, the different digital Leica M cameras and the Leica Q (Typ 116) he has used, have become for him invaluable photographic tools to get good pictures shooting handheld, thanks to the great freedom of movements provided by these highly reliable small mirrorless photographic tools, standing out because of their little weight and volume, in full sinergy with first-rate and tiny lenses producing superb image quality.
But irrespective of the photographic gear brand used, the key factor has always been the person behind the camera and handling it, the experience, the sense of anticipation, the ability to make efficient compositions, to choose the right moment to get the pictures, to go unnoticed during the photographic act whenever it is possible, and so on.
A local indigenous dweller of an area in which a large foreign mining site was placed. In all the years elapsed since its installation, it has hugely degraded the quality of life of the local inhabitants of the zone, who are suffering very much.
© Alessandro Cinque
And in these regards, Alessandro Cinque has got talent galore, along with something of paramount importance to do this kind of photography : he loves people and throughout all of his work, he exhibits an uncommon penchant to beget empathy with human beings, particularly those ones living under extreme conditions, as happens with Peru´s Andes region, which remains the most impoverished in all of the country.
Therefore, Alessandro Cinque´s photographic style is highly immersive, fruit of a previous sincere friendship and chemistry he has created for a long time with the persons he captures with his cameras, becoming a part of their world, experiencing the daily context of the Andean communities living beside the mining sites.
In addition, he has managed to build the unique and very personal aesthetics of his " The Price of the Land " long-term photographic project.
He didn´t want an overly contrasted black and white crying or dramatizing people.
A woman reaping wheat in a field of Espinar (Peru), where the coterminous mine has significantly harmed the agricultural output because of the spill of poisonous acid waters made by the company extracting minerals in the area, which has contaminated the land. The hill in the right background is natural, but the huge hills in the left background of the image are completely artificial, made with the accumulated extracted residues of the mine thrown on the place, and which are pushing aside the inhabitants of the village more and more.
© Alessandro Cinque
He has made a point of showing the dignity existing in the fight of these human beings asking for their rights, so he opted for a very peculiar technique and RAW developing method on converting the colour images to b & w, firmly grounded on the seminal keynote that each photograph had to be made in a very specific way, to obtain the scale of greys that he pines for.
Moreover, he has always had all of his cameras profiled and calibrated in the same way, and works with a great expert taking care of the postproduction, who has perfectly grasped what he looks for in his images and RAW archives.
In addition, Alessandro Cinque has increasingly improved his visual language, developing a coherent and powerful narrative, conceiving photography as a total experience merging intensive practice, targeted learning and cultural immersion, encompassing from the direct contact with people, places and cultures to the complete management of the photographic project, from the initial idea to the final selection of images.
MAIN GOALS OF THE PHOTOBOOK
© Alessandro Cinque
" The Price of the Land " is a gorgeous 20 x 26 cm horizontal format book, with 210 pages and 207 photographs, including some unpublished images. The first edition will consist of 1,000 copies, of which 100 will be limited edition, numbered and signed, with a unique design.
Printed in Italy on C2S 115 g paper of reference-class quality, the book condenses thousands of miles, hundreds of field trips and more than 320,000 photographs, so it also stems from a colossal and very time-consuming work of edition.
Inside, the reader will find :
- Portraits of resistence, testimonies from communities defending their water and land from extractivism.
- Landscapes of extraction, vast deserts, high altitude lagoons and mountains transformed into open-pit mines.
- Stories of memory, how ancestral traditions and cultural survival coexist with the pressure of the global markets.
On the other hand, the book preface is made by Sarah Leen (former Director of Photography at National Geographic), who has followed this project step by step from the beginning.
There are also complementary texts from acclaimed Peruvian journalists Nelly Luna and Marcelo Rochabrun.
These writings provide context and reflections, while keeping the photographs at the heart of the book.
Everything with the main goal of giving voice to the poor people living next to the mines, rarely included in global debates on energy, and whose existence is being hugely deteriorated as a consequence of their activity.
" The Price of the Land " seeks to change that and expose the contradictions of a world trying to save the planet while sacrificing certain lands and cultures suffering from water scarcity (most times poisoned), displacement, pollution,
Deny Huaman Silvestre, 35, and her son David Jesus, 9. Deyvit was born with a development disability in Cerro de Pasco (Perú), a a village where research shows that an entire generation of children is being affected by toxic metal poisoning of the waters (particularly the Patarcocha lake in its center) made by the huge open-pit mine of the Volcan Company, very dangerously adjacent to the village and which is devastating its more than 60,000 inhabitants. Chronic lead poisoning frequently generates severe anemia that, due to the lack of red blood cells that carry oxygen in the blood, leads to developmental delays and malformations, specially during infancy. Deny tried to help her son, but local clinics were unable to tackle the problem. To support her son´s treatments, Deny works in two jobs : at a store during the day and as a security guard at night, because she needs money to buy vitamins for her son. They are not a cure, but make him feel better. 2020. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH. f/4 at 1/250. ISO 800.
© Alessandro Cinque
incurable diseases,
Residents of Espinar (Peru) celebrate the funeral of Eduarda Yauli, who died at the age of 73 after having drunk poisoned water from a rivulet contaminated by the nearby mine. The procession ends at the Espinar Cemetery, where the coffin will be buried. 2018. Leica M9 with Summicron-M 50 mm f/2 Version 3. f/11 at 1/1000 s. ISO 160.
© Alessandro Cinque
death of people after drinking toxic waters contaminated by the mining and meltering sites, landscapes erosion, etc,
© Alessandro Cinque
But simultaneously, this book puts all Alessandro Cinque´s effort and outstanding talent as a photographer (a gift which can be seen in this very good picture in which he shows his excellent timing accuracy on pressing the shutter release button of his camera, capturing the two girls running on the lower right area of the image with her feet in the air, with a diagonal ascending line from left to right greatly defining the image, oozing motion feeling) to reveal the brave resistance of the local Latin American populations against the ruthless greediness of the mining companies threatening their existence and ancient habitat, as well as having reconfigured the relationship of the people with the territory, leading to the gradual loss of Andean folklore and identity, so Alessandro Cinque has harnessed photography to amplify the voices of indigenous communities, framing their struggles not as isolated events, but as part of a broader global fight for justice, dignity and survival,
© Alessandro Cinque
fighting tooth and nail in the battle for obtaining a better life for future generations of local inhabitants from Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Chile and Ecuador living next to the mining sites, to preserve their self-esteem, their stateliness, and safeguard their human rights that are being trodden.
© Alessandro Cinque
Obviously, when these poor indigenous boys and girls grow up, they will be very far from the standard of living, wealth, daily comfort, university education, fluency in different languages, expensive private hospitals, not poisonous food and water and very long life expectancy of the sons and daughters of the foreign CEOS, members of the board of directors and owners of the large mining companies that have become an imposed disruption harming their health and livelihoods.
Symbolic image of a Quechua woman in Ayaviri (southern Peru) lying on parched land. The local economy traditionally thrived on cheese and milk production, and Ayaviri´s cheese was sold across the country. But the mining facilities next to the village have polluted water and provoked drought, which has reduced their cows´ milk output and quality. As a result, cheese producers struggle to sell their items outside the city, and the economic conditions of the breeders have significantly deteriorated. Therefore, buyers in nearby markets avoid purchasing what they call " contaminated cheese ". 2021. Leica M10 with Summicron-M 35 mm f/2 ASPH. f/11 at 1/2000 s. ISO 200.
© Alessandro Cinque
© Alessandro Cinque
But in spite of their daily very hard fight for survival, these laudable indigenous people from the Quechua, Kiwcha, Aymara and Kolla Andean communities from different countries have had the huge generosity and unselfishness of devoting part of their very valuable time to heartily support the Italian photographer, allowing him to document their way of life.
This way, Alessandro Cinque, eternally grateful to them, has been able to feel what means to live beside mining and meltering sites in the Andes zone and has toiled full blast for eight years to provide his full effort with this photobook in the defense of the future generations who will keep on dwelling in the nearby areas, though a number of the original inhabitants have already been forcibly deprived of its houses and lands by these redoubtable mining corporations which have broken their harmony and peace.
© Alessandro Cinque
All of these native peoples from Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina and Chile have a special connection to the agricultural lands where they and their animals live. They dedicate great care to agriculture and perform rituals to Pachamama (Mother Earth) to ask for good harvests and express their gratitude. However, where mining occurs, agricultural lands and liverstock often end up affected by toxic metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury, among others, while ancient traditions connected to the environment slowly disappear.
In the image can be seen a Quechua child in Peru playing with a hen in the field. When the photographer approached to get the picture, the child looked at him and the hen tried to escape. Alessandro Cinque shot the camera just when because of the scare and the unexpected movement of the animal, the child closed his eyes.
It all happened in a split second, and this picture is one of the most meaningful images of the whole project, since it embodies the deep relationship existing in the Andes between nature, people, the Pachamama and the animals.
The hen´s wings seem to intertwine with the child´s hug.
This picture was made by the Italian photographer in May of 2017 and he thinks that it was the first true image of the project.
© Alessandro Cinque
Aerial photograph made in 2020 of the huge Volcan Mining Company complex (subsidiary of the powerful Anglo-Swiss Glencore company), in Cerro de Pasco (Peru), which has brought about that the water supply of more than 100,000 local inhabitants is contaminated by its poisonous residues.
In 2012, the Peruvian Ministry of Environment declared the emergency state in Cerro de Pasco (situated at a height of 4330 m above sea level), as a consequence of the very high presence of lead in the rivers, the tissues of the animals and the residents´ blood, to such an extent that the lead in the blood of children exceeds forty-three times the healthy limit.
It can be seen in the image how this huge open-pit mining site ( featuring a length of 2 km and a depth of more than half a kilometer) is on the very border of the city, devastating it with all the constant dangers that it implies.
It´s no wonder that the author of this milestone photobook considers himself first and foremost as a worker of photography who has done his best personally involving himself with the themes that make up the subject matter of his images : the indigenous people he loves with all of his being, their way of living, how they go beyond themselves facing adversity, their tremendous endurance against all odds, their joy of living in the middle of an ordeal and many other things which have created an unbreakable relationship of mutual confidence and sincere appreciation between the photographer and these wonderful people from the Andes.
Therefore, Alessandro Cinque met with many of the persons affected, heard countless stories, had a myriad of conversations and documented their daily lives throughout eight years, always with tons of passion and love for them, with breathtaking personal closeness to his motifs, wanting to give a voice to minorities, bringing their living conditions into focus and sparking a discourse.
Because they are his heroes, who have shaped him as a photographer and as a man, in addition to having given his life a purpose.
The author wants to express his gratitude to Alessandro Cinque for his decisive help to the making of this humble article, since he kindly sent the original archives in high quality of the pictures, the detailed caption of each photo and a lot of valuable information of all kind regarding " The Price of Land " photographic project.
The photographic work of Alessandro Cinque has been published in The New York Times Magazine, National Geographic, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Guardian, Al Jazeera, Reuters, GEO, Bloomberg and others, having been exhibited in 80 solo and group shows across 27 countries.
He has been recognized with major awards such as the World Press Photo, Prix Pictet, Eugene Smith Prize, POYi, Leica Oskar Barnack, Alexia Grant, Vital Impact and BarTu Photo Award, having also been recipient of the Pulitzer Center Grant (2012/2024) and the National Geographic Society Grant (2022).
In 2022, his work appeared on the cover of National Geographic, where he was named National Geographic Explorer.
In 2023, he won the World Press Photo, the Sustainability Award at the Sony World Photographic Awards, the CCFD Prix Photo Terre Solidair Grant and was a finalist in the Prix Pictet.
In 2024, he received the Vital Impacts Grant founded by Ami Vitale.
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