Terri Gold is an award-winning photographer known for her poetic infrared imagery of people from the remote corners of the world.

She is a storyteller who is happiest when she is in a world that is unknown to her. In remote villages across the globe she is searching to stretch her beliefs and imagination as far as they will go.

Gold’s ongoing project “Still Points in a Turning World” explores our universal cross-cultural truths: the importance of family, community, ritual and the amazing diversity of its expression.

“My earliest memories are of spinning a globe. I was always drawn to the last mysterious corners of the world. I love the still quality of a photograph that captures a fleeting moment in time. We are still and still moving.”

Gold’s work is interpretive in nature, a combination of the artistic and documentary styles of photography. She is looking for the grace notes, for the sense of wonder in our world. The photograph is the first step in the process. Her technique involves creating imagery using the invisible infrared light spectrum. From the beginning of her career, Terri searched for a film that could portray the world how she experienced it, with all its mysteries. After shooting infrared film for many years, she now uses a digital camera converted to infrared and the digital darkroom to create the split-toned imagery. There is a haunting quality to the invisible, iridescent world of infrared light that touches another dimension, which exists just beyond what our eyes can see. This quality seems to suit the subject matter: images of places where different millenniums exist side by side.

In recent years, Gold has visited a number of tribes throughout Asia and Africa. The Omo Valley of the East African savannah is an ancient land of mystery regarded as the birthplace of all human kind. It is home to the Surma, Kara, Hamar, Dassanech and Mursi tribes who live in complete symbiosis with nature, daily adorning their bodies with natural materials from the world around them. Beautification and scarification practices equally beautiful and brutal are encouraged as a way for an individual to establish their identity within the community.

China is a wild and complex mixture in time and place – ancient and modern all at once. In Guizhou, city life is a synonym for modernity, the country backwardness. There is change in the air. It is humming; the economy, the people, the land, are all bursting to move forward.
It is predicted that in the next few decades, China will experience the largest human migration in the world’s history, from rural to urban. At risk is a vast archive of knowledge and expertise of healers and weavers, silversmiths and musicians, poets and saints.

Indigenous cultures are disappearing all over the world. What will become of us if the myriad voices of indigenous people fall silent? The timeless past will soon meet the imminent future. What will be discarded and what will be treasured?

“Though we may not see our own customs and traditions in these images, it is my hope that we recognize our common humanity. If we share our stories and appreciate the mysteries of every realm, we may yet gain a deeper understanding of that which lies both behind and ahead of us.”
In the end, our only heritage is our planet.
As beautiful as it is diverse…

Gold’s work has garnered many awards, is shown in galleries internationally and published extensively. Recent exhibitions of her work have taken place at Heritage Museum of Malaga in Malaga, Spain, Gallery Photographica in San Francisco, The Center for Fine Art Photography in Colorado and at The Annenberg Space for Photography in conjunction with the “Life: A Journey Through Time” exhibition.
Recent publications of her work include feature articles in the BBC Picture Desk, the Huffington Post, Featureshoot, aCurator, and Kinzeuro in France. Terri has received many awards from the International Photography Awards, Prix de la Photographie, Paris (Px3), Humanity Photo Awards, and the Black and White Spider Awards. [Official Website]