Zambian Portraits

Paolo Solari Bozzi was, at the age of 15, introduced by a fellow student at a boarding school in Venice to the world of black and white photography and to the darkroom. In 1982, Paolo obtained his Law Degree in Milan before working for 8 years as a lawyer followed by 20 years at an investment bank. When at university, he printed occasionally but early career demands got in the way. Around 2003, he started to devote his free time to printing and added the medium format to the Leica format. For 4 months in 2014, with his wife Antonella and their Land Rover TD5, Paolo travelled through Zambia, penetrating some of the lesser known areas of this fascinating country, including the remote Bangwelu swamps where the people had hardly ever come across a European visitor. Using mechanical medium format cameras and wide angle lenses, Paolo depicts, in about 120 black and white images printed in his own darkroom, some aspects of the lives of Zambians at work - be they fishermen, harvesters, road workers, miners or shop keepers, this without forgetting the innate beauty of a landscape captured in photographs taken from the air.