Robert Leon

When I was a young child the world of images I saw in my parents’ collection of National Geographic and Life magazines fascinated me and I’d dream of going to those places because I was fascinated by the World’s cultures and exotic places.

How would you describe your photography?

I’m a travel and documentary photographer and photography is my way of contributing to other people’s appreciation and understanding of diverse cultures and their traditions. I photograph people in their environment, especially traditional and indigenous people or people with lots of character who have interesting stories.

You lived in Italy for nine years. You worked there as a fashion photographer. What are your personal opinions about that stage in your life?

Living and working in Italy was a great experience. Art is everywhere and living immersed in it evolved my photography’s aesthetic characteristics. Italy is a big creative center with historic and contemporary artistic environments for creative people, so the creative vibration of the arts gets absorbed into your being along with Italy’s passionate way-of-life. At that time, fashion photography was a good creative outlet for me that expanded my abilities to work with people and convey moods or feelings that transcend photography’s flat 2D-plane so that images can go beyond the photograph’s flat physical dimension and express emotions or feelings of people and places. In other words, getting the equipment and technique out of my way so my heart and soul come out to play visually and poetically without gimmickry so imagery can transcend photography’s flat 2D-plane and communicate a mood, or convey a sense of person and place so while looking at a 2d image they are transported to another World and get a sense the energy of the image whether it’s a person or a place.

After awhile, the context of fashion photography became very meaningless in terms of fulfilling my desire to photograph reality and places around the world. Since the content of the work wasn’t providing me with the satisfaction that my true calling as a photographer would give me - which is to show authentic people, places and nature around the world with a positive viewpoint. I had the opportunity to shoot, travel and work on documentary assignments for Italian magazines and eventually left the fashion industry to work on what really interests me; experiencing life while seeing the world with interesting people and making a contribution for positive evolution by showing the beauty we have on Earth.

You are passionate about people, travel and indigenous cultures. Is photography your excuse for travelling and satisfying your curiosity?

No, it pays the bills. Just joking! It’s not an excuse, it’s a way-of-life I choose and make happen because I’m passionate about the World and my life in it. I love photography because it’s my way of creative expression - I’m a right-brained visually inclined person. My way-of-being has evolved by learning many things in many places about people and myself. My curiosity about the Earth and people has progressed into a mission as a responsible observer showing truth and beauty around us. My passion for photography has evolved into being a visual voice for all cultures and making a contribution to society, while evolving myself as a person with the experiences I have and expanding out to others sharing and learning from their experiences. The curiosity to see and go places evolved into enthusiasm to do something good, which gives me the energy to continue doing what I do. I consider us all indigenous people of Earth so we are all responsible for the Earth; my photography of indigenous cultures has no boundaries and includes everyone.

When you live with indigenous people for a period of time, how do you feel personally? How do you see the modern society in which we usually live?

I’ve felt connected in some profound ways, in terms of feeling at home with authentic people who have wisdom and good sense of values living harmoniously with Earth and each other. But in other ways I feel alienated from them because I’m from the Western World where a lot of people are very destructive to the Earth. It looks like Indigenous people have a very large amount of disdain towards “modern society” - they see the huge amount of damage being done to the Earth – who they (and I) consider Mother Earth - and so they take the raping of the Earth for Her resources very personally.

So bridging that gap between me, being a Westerner, and the indigenous people takes patience and gaining their trust. It’s a bridge with a huge gap between the two sides; on one side of the bridge is the “modern” world’s immense population with unsustainable consumerism and on the other side are people living and sustaining themselves in harmony with each other and Mother Earth. But the side with most power - the “modern” world - has the most damaging effects in terms of the environment, nature and social well-being. The discrepancy seems really enormous, like a battle between David and Goliath. It seems the only way balance will be reestablished on Earth is by an enormous shift in people’s consciousness and evolving humanity - or a Divine phenomenon like an Avatar coming to Earth to reset the balance and restore harmony.