Photographer Nick Otto heard about the coming funeral from a friend who has spent significant time studying Chinese religion, and Otto did everything he could to get there from his home in San Francisco. “When an opportunity comes up to be a part of something so personal and traditionally so important it is impossible to pass up,” Otto said. “As the world grows more connected, local traditions will be lost or forgotten. I want to bear witness and document these traditions.”
The images were etched in photographer Nick Otto’s mind as he recently traveled to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Desaturated and monochrome images of war and destruction from the 1990s. The siege of Sarajevo had been the longest siege of a major city in modern warfare. San Francisco-based Otto aimed to tell the story of a city still mired in a long recovery from the fog of war, with high unemployment and a lagging economy. However, when he got on the ground and started working, a different picture began to emerge.
