New York Times Magazine – Gold Ninja Miners of Mongolia

December 4th, 2011

In today’s New York Times Magazine’s “Look” Section you can see two images from my personal project on the Ninja Miners in Mongolia’s far north. These miners (so-called because when they sling their green panning basin over their backs they look like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) are drawn from all over the country and brave incredibly harsh physical conditions and threats of violence from other miners to try and prise gold from the earth. You can see how the spread ran here:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/12/04/magazine/ninja-gold-miners-mongolia.html?ref=magazine

To access the camp we needed to ride reindeer for three days from the nearest village and sleep outside – without tents mind you – in temperatures that plummeted below -50C. One morning I awoke to find my water bottle frozen solid against my body inside the sleeping bag.