Dao Tuyen Girls on the Road near Binh Lu

About the Photographer

Warner, Ellen

Ellen Warner began her career as a photojournalist in 1969. Represented by the Black Star photography agency, she spent the next nine years photographing in China, Iran, East Africa, India, and throughout Europe. Between 1978 and 1988 she took a hiatus to raise her children before resuming her career with a new focus on portraiture. During this period she developed a specialization in portraits of authors and went on to work for numerous publishing houses in New York and London. Although she continues to complete commissions for author photographs, Warner returned to photojournalism in 1997. Since then her photographs have been published in newspapers and magazines such as the New York Times and Travel and Leisure, in many cases accompanying her own travel articles.

In 2004 Warner photographed in Vietnam, where she documented the traditional cultures of Hmong and Dao populations, two of the country's ethnic minorities. In gelatin silver prints such as "Dao Tuyen Girls on the Road near Binh Lu" and "Red Dao Women at the Market in Muong Hum," the rich blacks of the women's clothing stands out, contrasting with the rich embroidery and ornamental trim of their traditional attire. The particular costumes of the Dao vary from region to region, as shown here by the differences between the Red Dao and Dao Tuyen women that Warner portrays in these two photographs.