Photographer #393: Marco Vernaschi

Marco Vernaschi, 1973, Italy, is a photojournalist with a very distinct signature. He has covered various intense stories around the globe. Child Sacrifice deals with the fraudulent phenomenon of child witches, organ trafficking and child sacrifice. The motive for the killing, mutilation and torture of these children however is merely economical. In Guinea Bissau he focused on narco trafficking and the criminal networks. Latin American drug cartels and the Lebanese Islamist group Hezbollah use the region for illegal trade of cocaine, oil and human trafficking amongst other things. This has resulted in organized crime, prostitution, an aids epidemic and the assasination of its president, army chief and two leading politicians. One of his latest bodies of work is Placebo, which is an inward journey of Marco himself. It focuses on sex, death and his own sexual-related experiences. It is a conceptual project in which he has tried to understand his life better and to heal from his scars and memories. The images are a combination of direct experiences, visions and fragments of dreams. It is a strong, direct and intense project that includes a poetic layer. The following images come from the series Placebo, Child Sacrifice and West Africa's New Achilles' Heel.

Website: www.marcovernaschi.com