With Gypsies , photographer Patrick Cariou and writer and filmmakerGuy-Laurent Winterstein retrace the migration of the Rom people (the Gypsies’ own term for themselves) fromnorthern to southern Europe, the Middle East, and ultimatelyto India, the home of their ancestors. The original journeywas an epic, thousand-year odyssey and Cariou and Wintersteinhave labored more than a decade to retrace it.

Cariou, a self taught anthropologist and a professional andaward-winning documentary, portrait, and fine art photographerharbors a lifelong, passionate fascination with outlawsand renegades and an equal ability to earn their trust andrespect. In 1997, Cariou’s first monograph, Surfers featuredthe thousand-yard stares of renowned and revered athleteswho had famously chosen the sea over land, movement overstasis; in 2000 he produced Yes Rasta, after vanishing intothe Jamaican forests in pursuit of the last members of thetrue and hidden cult of Rastafarianism; and now, in 2010,with Gypsies , Cariou comes to the end of his travels spentdocumenting a sparse landscape of itinerant clans living in aworld apart for hundreds of years.

Himself a gadje (non-Gypsie), photographer Cariou relied onwriter and filmaker Winterstein as his point of access. A ManoucheGypsy born in France, Winterstein’s family connectionsenabled the expedition to begin, and his fluency in the Gypsytongue facilitated it as the pair headed east. The result isa stunning and thought-provoking collection of portraits andlandscapes that demonstrate the wide variety of conditions inwhich the Gypsies of the world find themselves, from citizento gangster, from the flashy prosperity of the MercedesdrivingManouches of France to the abject poverty of theKalderash of Slovakia.

Incredibly, Cariou’s images reveal the diversity of ethnic typesto be found in this global tribe; from the dark-eyed, ringlethaired stereotypical “Gypsy types” in Northern Europe, whoseem to display clearly their Indian heritage, to blond, blue-eyedchildren in Afghanistan, much nearer to the source oforigin, who nonetheless have distinctly Caucasian features.These people, scattered far and wide, are a family, boundtogether by centuries of history and generations of survival.