Where Masks Still Dance: New Guinea

Between assignments covering the world's political and social hotspots for The New York Times, Life, and National Geographic, Chris Rainier has been travelling to New Guinea to document the world's last stone age peoples. His images explore the grace and potency of these determinedly "primitive" people as their worlds become enmeshed in the internationalism of CNN, Bosnia, and O.J. Simpson. The photographer's short essays, appearing throught out the book, detail and explain both the rituals and traditions he has photographed.