The Herder Boys of Lesotho

Tom Oldham first visited Lesotho in 2009, shooting for the NGO Riders for Health, on a whistle-stop shoot travelling through this mountain kingdom. On the winding, climbing roads he'd see herder boys tending to their animals and immediately imagined a series of images that he just couldn't shake from his mind - their distinctive silhouettes against the sky, these icons of Lesotho wrapped in the woollen blankets that provide their only protection from an intense sun or a brutal winter.

The herder boys work astonishingly hard, for very low pay, in the toughest conditions imaginable. It is the only option available to some, who often have very little formal education and can enter into this employment from early childhood.

In November 2016, he was able to return to Lesotho to shoot these portraits and with some valuable assistance from the team at Riders for Health he came home with some very special new work.

This exhibition has been supported by Hasselblad, and it has been printed and framed by Metro Imaging. This is Tom's first solo West End exhibition and is being hosted at the White Space Gallery, on Great Newport Street - just off Leicester Square in London from June 26th to July 1st, 11am-7pm daily.