Sweet Gold

• Prize
  Gold in People/Culture
• Photographer
  Mauro De Bettio
• Photo Date
  april 2018

There are rare tribes in Nepal that have been haunting honey from Himalayan cliffs for centuries. A tradition that's carried on for generations. Wrapped in a tornado of angry giant bees, hanging with bare hands to a bamboo rope hundreds of meters high, these people risk their lives to collect the precious spring ‘red honey’, famous for its medicinal, aphrodisiac and hallucinogenic properties.

Born and raised in a little village in the Italian Alps, now based in Barcelona, Mauro already felt from young age the desire to tell. “Although it is difficult to express, I think that the photograph represents my way of speaking and what I try to do through my language is to capture the sense of what I breathe and touch with my hands. Not only in appearance but also, and especially, in the essence; trying to express nuances and subtleties contained in a single frame. I think that’s part of my personality and my work fully expresses what I am. My story, my soul”.