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Yan Seiler: The Outsiders

Photograph © Yan Seiler-All Rights Reserved
Yan Seiler travels allows him to document the plight of people in several Asian countries, an experience that provides his work a strong humanitarian slant.

His biography on his website is sparse, but it appears the Swiss national’s interest in photography is very recent, and was kindled by the gift of an old film camera in 2004. He discovered his indisputable talents quite rapidly, bought a digital SLR and took a break from his office job to leave for Asia.

I feature this SoundSlides slideshow titled The Outsiders of Yan's work amongst a community of lepers in India.

By way of background, leper colonies still remain around the world, in countries such as India, Japan, Egypt, Nepal and Vietnam. It is now commonly believed that many of those segregated into these communities were presumed to have leprosy, when they actually had syphilis. Leprosy is not highly infectious, as approximately 95% of people are immune and sufferers are no longer infectious after only a few days of treatment.