Sasha Bezzubov photographs acquaintances, travel friends and passing strangers that he met in Guatemala, India, Mexico and Thailand. They are travelers to the developing world. And while we know where they are from and where they visit, we do not know their purpose or relationship to the countries they are in. Bezzubov's portraits address the presence of the Westerner in these distant lands. Although they are predominantly travelers, they could also be tourists, expatriates, humanitarian workers, or any one of us.
Most photographs made in foreign lands are transparent windows looking onto unfamiliar worlds.
This has been true since the advent of photography. To behold a likeness of the Egyptian pyramids was the next best thing to being there. Simply by exclusion, these pictures denied any modern context, preferring to depict a past unbesmirched and uncomplicated by the present. Contemporary travel photography is plagued by similar exclusions and simplifications. The portraits from The Gringo Project are made in the same places covered by any issue of National Geographic .