Photo of the Week: Ibrahim Alsalamah
Documentary travel photographer Ibrahim Alsalamah focuses on people immersed in their passions, capturing the details, cultures and traditions of the families he meets along the way.
In this edition of 'Photo of the Week', documentary travel photographer Ibrahim Alsalamah selected an image taken while hiking through the Lares Valley and Salkantay Trail in Peru in 2024, featuring three siblings helping their parents pick potatoes in a remote village. "They were excited to show us how many they had gathered, and showed us their hands as proof of their hard work," Alsalamah says.
The scene came towards the end of Alsalamah's trail, after many nights spent under the stars of the Andes. "This photo was special to me because it marked the end of our trail, heading back to the city... It felt strange after the time we'd spent with the families along the trail. They were remarkably generous, feeding us a variety of potatoes and welcoming us into their village. The kids' excitement made it even better."
The area is also home to an extraordinary variety of native potatoes, with farmers cultivating around 200 traditional varieties per family and contributing to Peru's more than 4,000 native potato varieties.
For Alsalamah, though, what stayed with him was not a monument or landmark, but the everyday practice behind the landscape. "What stuck with me is how timeless systems of growing food are. It's not a structural monument like Machu Picchu, it's just potato farms, but somehow their legacy carries more impact."
