Gertrude Blom - Documentary Photographer

Born in Berne in the Swiss Alps, Gertrude Duby was a journalist and anti-fascist organizer during WWII. In 1940, weary of war, she journeyed to Mexico, where, inspired by the writing of French anthropologist Jacques Soustelle, she decided to reinvent herself as a jungle explorer. She bought an old camera and taught herself to use it. Then in 1943, she convinced a government official to let her join an expedition in search of the legendary Lacandon Maya.

The only Maya never conquered by the Spanish, the Lacandon had lived free for centuries deep in the Chiapas jungle (La Selva Lacandona). They were rarely photographed and only had sporatic contact with the outside world, mainly with loggers and chicle workers. Not only did Blom photograph the Lacandon and write a book about her experiences with them, she found in the LacandonMaya and their jungle home her life's avocation.

It was on a second expedition to visit the Lacandon that she met Frans Blom, a Danish archeologist and cartographer who was searching for Bonampak, the lost Mayan ruin. They teamed up on several subsequent expeditions and later married.