Story highlights The Badjao have lived off the shore of northeast Borneo for more than 200 years

Guillem Valle took underwater portraits of them as part of his project on stateless people

(CNN) It is noon, and the light filters softly through the water. Guillem Valle, camera in tow, drifts to the sea floor to capture an intimate portrait of a Badjao man.

In the dreamlike photograph, the Badjao extends his hand upward as though he were dancing.

"All these movements they do with their hands," Valle said. "They're trying to keep themselves down (on the seafloor), move forward or stay in place."

The Badjao are a tribe of nomadic sea dwellers who have lived off the shore of northeast Borneo for more than 200 years. They are a stateless people with no nationality in the traditional sense, residing instead in boats and living off the sea. As highly skilled divers, the Badjao are able to walk along the seafloor hunting for fish and pearls.

Valle sought to photograph the Badjao as part of a larger project about stateless people that has taken him to places such as Kosovo, China, South Sudan and the Palestinian territories.

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