They Were Watching Too

Award-winning photographer and solo traveler Nate Solo ventures deep into Papua New Guinea’s Highlands, immersing himself in tribal communities and capturing a rarely seen world from both sides of the lens.

What happens when curiosity outweighs fear?

When photographer, musician, and solo traveler Nate Solo first sees images from the Highlands of Papua New Guinea, fascination quickly becomes obsession. He’s heard the legends. He’s heard the warnings. Some turn out to be exaggerated. Others, not so much. Either way, Nate packs his cameras and goes.

In They Were Watching Too, Nate leaves conventional tourism behind, staying in locally run tribal ecolodges with people eager to share their traditions with those willing to make the trip. He photographs the Asaro Mudmen and the Skeleton Tribe, encounters sorcerers and Bird Spirits, hunts insects and frogs, shares drinks and music with a local string band, and meets the legendary Huli Wigmen. His photographs capture it all, from cultural performances to the unscripted moments in between.

Nate arrives ready to point his camera at a world he wants to understand. But from behind the lens, he begins to notice something else: They’re watching too.

The jokes that don’t translate. The tattoos that give them something in common. The conversations that stretch for hours. The strangers who become friends. What begins as an adventure becomes a deeply personal encounter with people whose openness, humor, and hospitality change him.

Funny, candid, visually stunning, and sometimes completely unfiltered, They Were Watching Too captures Papua New Guinea as Nate experienced it, and the people who became part of his story long after the journey ended.