Born in 1891 – 1973 he based his work while being in Peru, creating stunning portraits of his own social context while Europe and North America debated and struggled between pictorialism and straight photography. He was one of the first major Indigenous Latin American photographers. he is recognized for the profound historic and ethnic documentary value of his photographs. this also made him a unique photographer as his exceptionally strong portraits had a powerful message behind it, not only then but also today when all we have left is historic photograph about indigenous people.

Chambi as well as his signature portraits has also made many landscape photographs, which he sold mainly in the form of postcards.

“I have read that in Chile it is thought that the Indians have no culture, that they are uncivilized, that they are intellectually and artistically inferior in comparison to whites and Europeans. More eloquent than my opinion, in any case, are the graphic testimonies. It is my hope that an unbiased and objective witness will examine this evidence. I feel I am a representative of my race; my people speak through my photographs.” thought this statement of his, it shows the passion for his work, the connection and meaning to the photographs produced, as well as what they represent, the people, history. he has this deep connection with the photograph because he represents history that he is a part of, his own culture through people of his race. I like when he said “my people speak through my photographs.”, its this history and meaning Martin captures, and thought this quote you can clearly see his love for what he does, it isn’t just a meaningless works that was based on clicking a button and pointing a camera without thinking it through, he thinks ahead of everything before anything.

As he learned from English photographers about the camera and its new techniques, in his teens, this motivated him to become one himself.  For this he emigrated in 1908 to the city of Arequipa. Chambi was then a part of Cusqueña School of Photography. He exhibited while alive both in Peru and outside of it. Many critics claim that he divided his work into two groups: that of a commercial nature, which included commissioned portraits; and the other of a personal nature, which included his anthropological record, photographs of ethnic groups and a record of local traditions. as many other artists, his work started to get more appreciation only after his death in 1973, after his work been studied, appreciated and admired all over the world.

Músico quenista del Ande, is another work of Martin Chambi which presents an indigenous man playing an instrument which is likely to be a flute or it’s representative. I have found this image out of any that Chambi produced, very amusing as it give a sense of this realism, this purity, that Chambi simply caught a moment with his camera instead of creating it. What I mean by that is that the photograph itself doesn’t look staged, it doesn’t look like he purposely placed the man there, told him how to pose and where to look, this photograph simply is an addition to what was already happening, like the photograph is secondary to the moment, this is a reason why it makes an amazing historic photograph, it reveals the truth. This is what he wanted, he wanted to show the truth about his culture, to show the truth which was concealed by others, where it was thought that whites and Europeans are superior to them, that indigenous people “have no culture, that they are uncivilized, that they are intellectually and artistically inferior in comparison to whites and Europeans“. What he shows exactly in this photograph, is the opposite of this belief, he shows the culture, wisdom and art that comes with his race, this is through the clothing, the person and how they look like, the environment behind the man, but to me the most important factor is what he is doing and the face expression that is a response to his actions. He seems so at peace with who he is, and with what he is doing, this is why i think this is an excellent photograph to represent an overall look into his work as well as himself, the photographer (Martin Chambi).