Romanian Gypsies

Photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert photographed a Sintesti, Romania, from 1990 to 2006, documenting the life, traditions, history and outlook of the Romanian Gypsies.

These photos convey a period of dramatic changes in the gypsy camp: its people leave behind the dark past of the communist years and take the path to wealth, access to which can provide new opportunities.

The camp is gradually transformed from a cluster of houses and traditional tents, horses and carts into a village, where all income (earned by the sale of scrap metal) is spent on the construction of the fantastic houses and buying Porsche cars. But people’s outlook has not changed, women still don’t access education and opportunities to work, but all of them have a strong desire to become “Europeans.”