Over sixty years ago, Magnum photographer Cornell Capa travelled to the Peruvian Amazon to document the Amahuaca, a people then believed to be on the brink of extinction. Half a century later, I was given the opportunity to revisit the Amahuaca still living on ancestral land in relative isolation. This project, initiated in collaboration with anthropologist Christopher Hewlett—who has worked with these communities for over a decade—aims to offer a visual reflection on the current realities of a culture long thought to be fading.

I spent three months living among the Amahuaca, photographing daily life: harvesting, hunting, fishing, cooking, and sharing time on the land. All images were made using 35mm and medium format film. Shooting analogue was both a creative and practical decision, made in part to echo Capa’s original work, but also due to the absence of electricity and the off-grid conditions of life in the forest.

What emerged is a portrait of continuity and change. Despite the pressures of modernity—plastic, petrol, processed foods, nationalised education and healthcare—the Amahuaca continue to fish and hunt, to grow crops in chakras (shared family gardens), to make masato (a fermented yucca drink), and to build and cook using traditional methods.

They also continue to teach their children the Amahuaca language—though much has been lost—and raise them through a collective sense of care. While external influences have undoubtedly altered aspects of daily life, the Amahuaca remain bound by deep kinship and a strong relationship to the land. Their ongoing decisions about what to preserve and what to adopt reflect a culture that, rather than disappearing, is actively navigating survival on its own terms.