Wild Africa

Leaving the urban setting and modern life behind, for 15 years I have been privileged to travel through some of the wildest regions left on our planet — compelled to capture the unique personalities and expressiveness of the magnificent wild animals of Africa. All in black and white, all part of one big family album.

My first meeting with Africa was like a thunderbolt.

There was a part of me that wanted to return to our roots, and Africa resonated with me like the animal instinct that lies deep within each of us. After travelling for thousands of miles, I always have this incredibly vibrant feeling of being in entirely unknown territory. Africa is always evolving, free, and wild... hugely wild.

Above: Lioness (2015)

Above: Hugs of lioness (2006)

Utterly disconnected from our urban environment, for more than fifteen years I have been drawn — mind, body and soul — to photograph the remarkable animals from this land of light and contrast.

Above: Cheetah before the rain (2006)

Above: Elephants and bird (2015)

I am constantly inspired by the sense of serenity and harmony between the natural landscapes and the diverse wildlife that roams these lands.

Everything is connected and the animals are totally adapted to their environment. I take photographs based on my gut instinct. For me, the thing that matters the most is the connection.

Above: Elephant, The road is closed (2015)

Above: Elephant crossing the river (2009)

I cannot stand strict pre-visualisation or procedures that lock people into pre-formatted ways of work. My conviction is never to prepare my shots. I prefer to be guided by luck, and to be inspired by the ever-changing spectacle of wildlife. Out in the field, I often work with a local guide who will drive the car while I concentrate on taking photos. It is very important to be utterly present in the moment, and not to be disturbed.

Opportunities in wildlife photography never come twice.

Above: Zebras crossing the river (2015)

Above: Rhinos quartet (2013)

For me, there is no difference between animals and humans in terms of photography technique. When I take a picture of a lion or a giraffe, I use exactly the same approach as when I photograph people. I try to capture something of the animal’s unique personality and expressiveness, as well as their strength and sense of freedom. I believe my pictures can create a connection between the animal and viewer, as the viewers discover a personality in these animals, and realise they have emotions too.

Above: Lion in the grass (2013)

Above: Two zebras (2004)

Above: Cheetah portrait (2013)

I am always filled with a great sense of tranquility and happiness when I leave the urban setting and modern life behind — travelling for weeks on end through some of the wildest regions left on our planet.

For me, there is nothing more powerful than the strength and beauty of Nature, and yet, at the same time, it is very fragile and precarious.

Above: Elephants crossing the plain (2013)

Above: Giraffe in harmony with their natural setting (2013)

Today, the fall of wildlife in Africa and elsewhere is disastrous.

I cannot know if we will discover more effective methods to halt or reverse this devastating change. However, I choose to hope and believe that we can. I believe that people are fed up with shocking images of destruction, poaching and deforestation — and yet it is of grave importance that we share these images, as we must all know what is happening on our planet. I don’t know exactly how photography can help preserve our wild ecosystems, but I feel proud when people experience my images and understand that these animals are just as ‘human’ as we are — with a personality, and a family.

Above: Lion, The small one (2013)

I believe that we must have a sincere conscience for our fellow animals, and the devastating impact our species is having on so many of them. We must open our minds and hearts to the fact that we all part of a living, breathing planet, and recognise that we are just one piece of this wonder.

We must leave more space, more life, for all the other species, because we will not survive their extinction. It is humanity’s greatest challenge.

* * *

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA

LAURENT BAHEUX

I am a self-taught French photographer inspired by the soul of nature and wildlife. I express this only in Black and White, like a big Family Album. www.laurentbaheux.com

 

The Lion Guardians

With human-wildlife conflict on the rise in East Africa, the hunt for a long-term, viable conservation solution is on. From conservancies that benefit the Maasai landowners, to the transformation of their young warriors into lion protectors, to “predator-proofing” livestock, a massive cultural shift is underway.

DAWN IS JUST BREAKING WHEN KAMUNU SAITOTI SETS OUT ACROSS THE AMBOSELI BUSH IN SEARCH OF LIONS.

On first glance, he appears much like any other Maasai warrior. Lean and tall, his dark red shuka is wrapped around his torso and waist concealing his only weapon, a long knife with a simple wooden handle. Brightly colored beads adorn Saitoti’s neck, ears, forearms, and ankles, and his feet, far more weathered than the rest of his body, are only partially covered by dusty sandals fashioned from discarded car tires.

“I killed my first lion when I was 21,” Saitoti says as he scans the horizon. In all, he has killed five lions. This, he says, was an integral part of his family history, part of being raised as a moran, a Maasai warrior. “My brother and father have also killed lions.”
 

A male lion surveys his territory on the outskirts of Masai Mara National Reserve.

Traditional Maasai beads adorn Saitoti’s ankles.

The Maasai are traditionally a nomadic people subsisting almost exclusively on the milk, blood, and meat of cattle grazed on East Africa’s vast rangeland, once home to endless numbers of wild animals.
In the past, lion killing for the Maasai was as much about cultural tradition as it was about protecting their livestock from predators. To hunt and kill a lion was a critical right of passage known as olamayio — the way in which all young Maasai males became men. The tradition also created a powerful connection between warriors and lions, with each young moran receiving a lion name after his first successful hunt. Saitoti’s lion name, Meiterienanka, means “one who is faster than all the others.”

But traditions are beginning to change. On this day, in place of a spear, Saitoti carries a radio telemetry kit. He unfolds the antenna in a manner suggesting he has done this countless times before, and looks around in search of a hill — not an easy task in a landscape as flat as this. He settles for the remnants of an abandoned termite mound and begins to scan for a signal. Once he has a sense of the direction the signal is coming from, he packs away the kit and begins walking, dust trailing his brisk march along the well-used track.
 

Standing on the remains of an old termite mound, Lion Guardian Kamunu Saitoti scans for a signal. A number of the lions in the area have been fitted with radio collars.

For the next three hours, Saitoti stops only to look for signs of lions, or to talk to herders. Most tracks he sees are too old to bother with, but as the sun nears its zenith, he finds a set that elicits visible excitement — a departure from his otherwise solemn demeanor. These are the tracks of lion cubs, young ones, and very fresh. Patience, however, will be required here. The narrow trail leads into a maze of dense shrubs, and that is no place to follow a lioness with cubs — even for someone as experienced as Saitoti is.

At 36, Saitoti is a seven-year veteran, and one of Kenya’s three regional coordinators, of an organization called Lion Guardians. Established in 2007, the program is dedicated to finding ways for Maasai and lions to coexist. At its core is a shift in the relationship between the moran and the lion:

Hunters have become protectors. This profound change in perspective is a critical component of East Africa’s lion conservation efforts.
But the Guardians have a lot of ground to cover — just 45 Maasai warriors patrol a million acres of Kenyan rangelands — and human-wildlife conflict is a bigger problem than one organization, or one approach, can solve.
 

Lion Guardian Kamunu Saitoti takes meticulous notes about his observations, including GPS readings of animal tracks.

Lion Guardians is just one of a number of small- and medium-sized efforts by government officials, NGOs, and locals to reduce human-wildlife conflicts in Kenya and elsewhere in Sub-Saharan Africa. As human populations in the region have exploded, consuming increasing amounts of wildlife habitat in the process, the numbers of some of the region’s most iconic and important species have been in steep decline. Populations of many of Kenya’s large herbivores have fallen by 70 to 90 percent since the late 1970s. And as their prey have become more scarce, so too have lions.

Scientists estimate that lion populations have fallen by more than 40 percent in the past 20 years, and the 20,000 or so wild lions that remain in Africa occupy just 8 percent of the species’ historical range.
In many ways, the need for such intervention has never been greater. Yet, in a region where droughts are common and famine is never completely out of sight, finding a path toward peaceful coexistence between herders and the predators that hunt their livestock will require a great deal of persistence, creativity, and a shift in how the region’s wildlife is valued.
 

For most Maasai, the response to finding a leopard in your goat pen, surrounded by several slain goats, would be simple and quick: Kill the leopard. There would be no repercussions, as Kenya’s wildlife laws allow citizens to dispatch so-called problem animals. One particular young male leopard, who like his mother before him, had been terrorizing the small village of Ngerende, was certainly a good fit for that description.

Known to a number of neighboring communities for years, he had already killed hundreds of goats — losses that are keenly felt in what is one of Kenya’s poorest regions, and a hotbed of human-wildlife conflict. With the leopard’s paw now caught in the fencing of a traditional pen, or boma, as livestock enclosures are called, it seems there can be only one possible outcome. But the owner of this particular boma, Mark Ole Njapit, is no ordinary Maasai.
 

Mark Ole Njapit, who also known as “Pilot,” is a respected elder in the Masaai community of Ngerende.

“I understand the value of wildlife for the future of our people,” says Njapit (48), a Ngerende community elder known by most as “Pilot.”

“Everyone here was very upset and wanted to spear the leopard, but I calmed them down and called KWS (the Kenya Wildlife Service).” Fortunately for the leopard, KWS officers were treating some elephants nearby and responded quickly. After tranquilizing the cat, they were able to cut him free and move him to a new area where he would be less likely to get into trouble.

That was six months ago. Today, Pilot is supervising as members of his village work in partnership with the Anne K. Taylor Fund (AKTF) — an organization working to reduce human-wildlife conflicts  — to  construct his new boma.

Workers stretch out the chain-link fencing for Pilot’s new ‘boma.’ The process typically takes two days, one for setting the posts in cement, and another for attaching the fencing.

The enclosure that the AKTF team is building is formidable, with welded corner posts interspersed with termite-proof eucalyptus timber poles, all set in concrete. The chain-link fence is stretched tight, seven feet above ground and another foot buried in the soil; the fence is designed to be virtually impossible for a predator to push over, climb, or dig beneath. (While a leopard could easily scale a similar-sized fence constructed entirely of wood, they tend to avoid chain-link fencing.) Today, after more than two years and nearly a hundred of the latest iteration of AKTF bomas constructed, the program’s record remains intact: Not a single livestock animal protected by one of these enclosures has been killed by a wild predator.
 

Members of Pilot’s family stand at the gate of his newly constructed predator-proof ‘boma,’ just a few miles from the edge of the Masai Mara National Reserve.

The effectiveness of the new bomas means that they are in high demand among the locals. And while AKTF doesn’t normally work in villages as far north as Ngerende, when Pilot reached out, the program’s construction director, Felix Masaku, decided to make an exception. “Here is a man whose small village loses maybe ten goats a week choosing not to kill the leopard that is doing much of that damage. That is very unusual, and it is important to support this man so others might follow his example.”

In general, AKTF prioritizes cases in which livestock losses have been greatest. “This is about conservation and co-existence,” Masaku continues. “We want to minimize conflict and retaliatory killings. If someone is losing five goats and two cows every week, that person is more likely to try to kill predators than someone who loses maybe one goat a month.”
 

A traditional ‘boma’ that has been constructed of wood and thorny branches.

By reducing the vulnerability of livestock to predation, this program and others like it aim to reduce, if not eliminate, retaliatory killings, known as olkiyioi. This practice poses a grave threat to lions in particular, especially when angry cattle owners turn to poison rather than spears with the intention of wiping out entire prides of lions. In recent years, there have been a number of high-profile killings. For example, several members of the Marsh pride (of BBC Big Cat Diary fame) were deliberately poisoned in the Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR) in 2015, and six lions, including two cubs, were speared to death outside Nairobi National Park in early 2016.

One troubling detail about the slaughter of the Marsh pride members is that it was carried out by Maasai seeking revenge for cattle killed while being grazed illegally inside the reserve. This practice is not uncommon. In fact, a paper published in the Journal of Zoology in 2011 estimated that by the early 2000s, livestock made up 23 percent of the MMNR’s mammal biomass — up from a mere 2 percent a few decades earlier. Today, this figure greatly exceeds that of any resident wildlife species in the protected area with the exception of buffalo. This is as much a sign of declining wildlife populations as it is of human incursions into the reserve, and it underscores significant challenges both in terms of protecting livestock and preventing human-wildlife conflicts.

As Anne Taylor, the founder of AKTF, put it:

“Inside the bomas is one thing, but keeping cattle or livestock safe if they are literally brought into the lions’ den is virtually impossible.”
 

Wildebeest pause before crossing the Sand River. While the Masai Mara’s resident wildebeest are all but gone, their numbers decimated primarily by agricultural expansion, each year, more than a million cross the border from Tanzania’s Serengeti National Park.

For many Maasai today, lions and other predators have become an expensive nuisance at best, and a source of deep-seated resentment at worst. In general, this resentment is not directed toward the predators themselves, but toward a government — and the world at large — which often appears to place more value on the big cats (and the tourism dollars they generate) than on Maasai lives and livelihoods.

National parks and reserves cover a mere 8 percent of Kenya’s land area and support only a third of its wildlife. The remaining two-thirds of the country’s wild animals inhabit private and communal rangelands. This is land that they share with the Maasai, Samburu, and other pastoral people who have been here for thousands of years. Many think it is here, outside of the parks and reserves, that the future of Kenya’s wildlife will be decided.

According to a recent report co-authored by Panthera, WildAid, and the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, loss of habitat due to agricultural expansion, which invariably pushes wildlife into closer contact with farmers and pastoralists, is the underlying factor of all major threats that lions face.
 

To many, the conversion of unprotected rangelands to agriculture might seem inevitable as the region’s population grows, but Calvin Cottar, a fourth-generation Kenyan whose great-grandfather emigrated from Iowa in 1915 and today runs a safari service in partnership with the Maasai community, disagrees. According to Cottar, it all comes down to economic security.

“We are talking about some of the world’s poorest people,” Cottar says. “For them it is about survival.

“Why should we expect them to care about lions or elephants when they are struggling to put food on the table ... Wildlife is costing them money, not earning them money, and that is what has to change.”
 

Calvin Cottar is presented with a goat as a token of appreciation for building Olpalagilagi Primary School, as well as funding salaries and meals. In the long run, the hope is that land lease fees will enable locals to fund their own projects, bringing greater autonomy.

Toward this end, while working with the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), the Cottars Wildlife Conservation Trust has initiated the formation of several district wildlife associations in an attempt to help local landowners acquire ownership rights to the wildlife residing on their lands. Because all wild animals in Kenya have historically been considered property of the state, benefits to the local communities that have to co-exist with these creatures have generally been few and far between.

Now in his 50s, Cottar says there is much more to be done. He is more convinced than ever that the future of Kenya’s wildlife lies with the people sharing the land with them — and with a shift in government policy.

“It’s really quite simple,” Cottar explains. “We all have to pay for ecosystem services. Pay the Maasai landowners a monthly lease for their land in return for leaving it intact. The problem is that wildlife has no value to them, whereas cattle and commercial agriculture do.”

While removing snares, building livestock enclosures, and monitoring lion populations are all important management practices, Cottar says, they don’t solve the root cause of human-wildlife conflict. Wild animals are basically a nuisance and a liability to the Maasai, he explains.

“We have to make maintaining wildlife the most productive land use, and do this in a way that respects the Maasai lifestyle and culture.”
 

Local schoolchildren perform a traditional Maasai dance to open proceedings at a meeting hosted by Olpalagilagi Primary School.

That is why Cottar now finds himself sitting in a circle with perhaps 50 Maasai — young and old, men and women. The topic for discussion, just as it has been for the last three years, is the formation of the Olderkesi Conservancy, on the land where Cottar’s safari camp currently stands.

In general, the conservancy model consists of land being leased directly from its owners for conservation purposes. Olderkesi is slightly different in that the 100,000-hectare ranch is yet to be subdivided, making it the last communally owned ranch left in Kenya. As a result, the land will be leased from a trust representing all 6,000 land owners, and because the agreement involves the Maasai, complete consensus is required before anything can be signed. In Maasailand, patience is not so much a virtue as an absolute necessity.
 

Members of the Maasai community meet at Olpalagilagi Primary School to discuss the formation of the Olderikesi Wildlife Conservancy.

Joining Cottar in the circle is one of the community’s most respected elders, Kelian Ole Mbirikani (58), a member of the Olderkesi Land Committee and Chairman of the Olentoroto land owners group, which holds the deeds to the land immediately surrounding Cottar’s safari camp. Mbirikani is also one of the key driving forces behind the conservancy initiative.

“The Maasai depend almost completely on their cattle,” Mbirikani explains, “so convincing them that it is possible to have both wildlife and livestock at the same time is our biggest challenge. In their experience, when land is set aside for wildlife, all of the cattle disappear. That’s what national parks do.”
 

Kelian Ole Mbirikani, a member of the Olderkesi Land Committee and Chairman of the Olentoroto land owners group, with his cattle. 

Mbirikani is convinced the conservancy concept can work, though. He and a group of other Maasai traveled with Cottar recently to conservancies as far north as Samburu. There, they saw wildlife and met landowners who are still able to graze their cattle. “The people are really benefitting,” Mbirikani says. “Their children are being educated all through university level with the money from the conservancies. That is what we want for our people, too.”
 

The AKTF team spend much of their time searching for and removing snares from inside the Masai Mara National Reserve. Although the snares are set primarily to catch herbivores they are indiscriminate killers, also trapping lions, leopards, and other predators.

There are nine other conservancies around the MMNR, and a handful more in other parts of the country, which all make regular, direct payments to local landowners. Similar approaches have been employed by Wilderness Safaris in Namibia and the Nature Conservancy in the United States, among others, and while none can be said to offer financial benefits on the same scale as Olderkesi, Cottar is clearly not alone in seeing this as a promising solution.
 

The snares displayed here by the members of the AKTF anti-poaching team were found during a single morning’s patrol in the Masai Mara National Reserve.

Indeed, two studies published last year demonstrate the effectiveness of Kenya’s conservancy approach. According to one of these assessments, despite lack-luster political support conservancies managed to achieve “direct economic benefits to poor landowner households, poverty alleviation, rising land values, and increasing wildlife numbers.” The other study saw a direct positive effect on lion populations within Kenya’s conservancies, with a nearly three-fold increase in just ten years.

However, while these results seem promising, there will always be areas outside conservancy boundaries — borderlands and buffer zones — where human-wildlife conflict are bound to continue. There is simply not enough funding to expand conservancies enough to eliminate these conflict zones.

The question, then, is whether people can learn to co-exist with lions and other wildlife even when there is no monthly payment to be collected.
 

Lion Guardian and accomplished tracker Kamunu Saitoti keeps a lookout.

BACK IN THE BUSH, KAMUNU SAITOTI WAITS PATIENTLY, HOPING TO GLIMPSE THE NEW LION CUBS WHEN THEY FINALLY EMERGE FROM THE THICKET.

He has been joined by a younger Lion Guardian, Kikanai Ole Masarie, and not long after, a battered Land Cruiser arrives with one of the organization’s founders, Director of Science Stephanie Dolrenry. The two warriors pile into the vehicle and they all set off in search of the cubs. “These lions are not like those in the parks,” Dolrenry explains. “There’s no tourism here, so they are not habituated to people or cars. We’ll be lucky if we find them at all. They can be extremely shy, especially with young cubs.”

But this is a lucky day, it seems. With thorny acacia bushes screeching against the glass and metal of the bouncing vehicle, the team suddenly finds itself in a veritable crowd of cats. Dolrenry, like the Guardians, is able to identify them all. Mere meters from the car, Meoshi, her three cubs, and her mother, Selenkay, lounge in the shade. A few dozen paces away, but on their way to join them, Meoshi’s sister Nenki with her own four cubs. Much smaller than Meoshi’s, these were the young lions whose tracks Saitoti was following. This is the first time anyone has laid eyes on this new generation.
 

The team’s first sighting of lioness Nenki’s four young cubs.

“Selenkay is a bit of a celebrity around here,” Dolrenry says. “She causes problems like no other lion, but she’s a tough one, and it’s hard not to admire her.” Saitoti nods. Selenkay is his favorite lion — her guile and tenacity are something to be respected. She and her family frequently target cattle and are well known for giving the Guardians plenty of headaches. She has been hunted more times than anyone cares to remember. One of her sisters has fallen victim to poison, and so too has one of her mates, while another sister was killed by spear. She has endured three male takeovers, and has even attacked a Maasai moran to protect her young cubs. Like the owners of the livestock she frequently kills, Selenkay is a true warrior.

Yet Selenkay’s legacy is far greater than her own reputation. Her longevity, itself the result of the unyielding commitment of Saitoti, Masarie, and the other Guardians, combined with the growing tolerance of the Maasai inhabiting these rangelands, has helped to connect populations in vital conservation areas, and has added much-needed genetic diversity to established prides in the region. One of her sons has made it as far north as Nairobi National Park where he is now breeding successfully.
 

A pair of male lions seeks respite from the heat in the shade of a tree.
 

Saitoti did not become a Guardian because he loved lions. Instead, he was in trouble and needed a job. Arrested for being part of an illegal hunt, his father had to sell three cows to have him released on bail. That made him reconsider his path. Killing lions, despite bringing prestige and honor, also brought hardship. “For the first two years my feelings about lions were the same,” Saitoti says. “This was just a job. But slowly, things began to change. They give food for my family, they help educate my children, I even buy veterinary medicine for my cattle with my salary from the lions.”
 

Lion Guardian Kikanai Ole Masarie celebrates the sighting of lioness Nenki’s cubs with a fresh cup of tea. Note the Lion Guardians symbol hung around his neck, alongside his traditional handmade Maasai beads.

“And we still get the girls!” Masarie chips in with a broad smile, referring to the social status that killing lions — and, more recently, protecting lions — can bring to an eligible young Maasai man. At 24, he is part of a younger generation of Guardians, and his words are significant, as they hint at an ability for long-held Maasai beliefs and traditions to change. “The other warriors mostly stay at home, but here we are, close to the lions every day, tracking them and finding lost cattle. The girls know we must be very brave!”

Saitoti smiles and continues, “For me, now, I feel there is no difference between the lions and my cows at home. I care about them equally.”
 

LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP TODAY

The success of conservancies like Olderkesi, supported by Cottars Wildlife Conservation Trust, indicates their importance as long-term viable solutions for conservation in partnership with the landowners themselves, the Maasai people. Explore more about other Masai Mara Conservancies here.

The Lion Guardians organisation have been conserving lions and preserving cultures since 2007. Learn more about their work and donate to support them at lionguardians.org. The 750 predator-proof bomas constructed by the Anne K. Taylor Fund have saved many lives and you can learn more and support their work at annektaylorfund.org. I hope you will join me in supporting the work of these dedicated organisations!

 

THIS ARTICLE WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA. 

 

MARCUS WESTBERG

Marcus Westberg is a a Swedish photographer, writer, conservationist, and guide working primarily in Sub-Saharan Africa.

ETHIOPIA: Suspended in Time

The moon shines brightly, as white robe and candle mark the lines of pilgrims winding their way up the hillside, to reach the ancient rock-hewn churches of Lalibela — a sacred place for those of the Christian faith since the 12th century.

According to the legends, men and angels worked together to construct the remarkable rock-hewn churches of Lalibela — the men working through the day and the angels taking over during the night.

Many historians believe that these great monolithic churches were commissioned during the reign of Saint Gebre Mesqel Lalibela, who ruled Ethiopia in the late 12th century and early 13th century, when the town was known as Roha. When Lalibela, whose name means “the bees recognise his sovereignty” in Old Agaw, was born, it is said that a swarm of bees surrounded him, which his mother took as a sign of his future reign as Emperor of Ethiopia. So the mythos tells us, Lalibela later visited Jerusalem, and after its capture by the Muslim caliphate in 1187 he swore to build another such sacred place of pilgrimage in his own country.

Each of Lalibela’s eleven churches was carved from a single piece of solid rock to symbolize spirituality and humility. The churches seem timeless, painstakingly excavated from the ground itself. It is believed that they were constructed first by digging out a kind of moat and were then hewn from the square rock that remained. The degree of craftsmanship and countless hours of heavy manual labour that it must have taken to carve out these wonders with hand tools alone is astounding. The churches are connected through a labyrinth of tunnels and sit beside a small river, called Jordan, and many other features also have Biblical names.

Just as astounding as the architecture, is that the churches have been in continuous use throughout the centuries since they were built.

Today, Lalibela is a town of no more than ten thousand people, but over a tenth of those are priests. Ritual and religion are the twin fulcrums upon which life in this place spins. Many times a year, there are processions, fasting, dancing, and the sound of many voices lifted up in song.

I feel privileged to have been in the holy city of Lalibela on many occasions and it continues to be one of the most fascinating photography trips I take anywhere in the world. It is a jump back in time, a photographic journey beyond compare. With the churches dimly lit by flickering candles, surrounded by faith and roughhewn rock — it is an entire world suspended in the 12th century.

Easter week in Lalibela is the most extraordinary in the year, when many thousands of devotees dressed in white will gather from all over the country, and father afield, to profess their love and Christian faith.

We land, and I arrive at the tiny, ancient airport terminal. To the left is an unmoving, rusted out conveyor belt with no hope of resurrection. Dragging my bags along behind me I reach the famous ‘Shuttle’. We are told to put the bags around back in the trunk. It is jammed, of course.

A few people toss their bags on the roof and the rest keep them on their laps once seated. I find a seat wedged between my bags and the stairwell, ending up intimately, uncomfortably close to my seat-mate. After a flat and long slow climb we reach the town on three and a half wheels.

“Ferengui... Ferengui...” (Foreigner... Foreigner...), I hear them murmuring amongst themselves. The time is 5:30 in the morning, and it is still dark. The inside of the church is small, austere, and it is difficult to move around discreetly by oneself let alone with a camera, and no cloak to help me meld with the darkness so thick that the eyes can hardly adjust. There is a candle here and there, occasional light through a tiny upper window, and the sudden glare of an opening door. Precious little else to see by.

The moon shines brightly over the hillsides and the lines of ascending faithful are seen thanks to the candles they carry up towards the church. In the morning half-light, the first chants begin. Voices lift.

Suspended in a parenthesis of time, I am witness to the rising dawn over the year 1100, as the first light breaks free of the horizon.

Swathed in long white robes, men and women come up the hill in silence. The lines of the path are drawn in the darkness by cloth and candle.

I have found a spot to wait in, where the faithful will have to pass by me. The more timid among them hid their faces in their cloaks, but the less so look at me squarely in the eyes. No aggression. Simply curious, trying to discern what on earth I am doing up here before dawn, if I am not here to pray, and what I am so patiently photographing.

The hours seem like moments, and I am alone, though among many. The fervor of the devotees as I move through the shadowed churches touches me deeply. These scenes, even for a skeptic who tries to stay propped behind his camera and maintaining distance, are magical. Moving.

HARRY FISCH

@NomadXpedition 

Harry Fisch is a travel photographer and leader of photo tours to exotic destinations with my company Nomad Photo Expeditions. He is also a winner and loser of the 2012 World National Geographic Photo Contest.

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA

In Search of Beauty in Antarctica

Traveling on a sailing ship built in 1911, the same era the last great expeditions braved the unknown and departed for the infinite and barren landscapes of the white continent, René Koster leaves on his own voyage in search of beauty, the beauty of emptiness and cold.

Thoughts of frozen ships trapped in ice-covered seas cross my mind.

Embarking on a voyage to the South Pole, I travel in a sailing ship built in 1911, the same era the last great expeditions departed for the unknown continent. I recall images of the photographers who joined these expeditions to report of the unexplored. Fascinated by their stories I head for the same circumstances as those of the early twentieth century.

I am on a journey of longing, to a time that once was. A heroic saga, filled with hardship and adventure, in an infinite, barren land.

This series of photographs, taken with modern equipment, references the past. Personally, I feel no need for the photographs to look as if they have been created with techniques of the early 1900s. This is why I have deliberately chosen to work in color; allowing the greyscale of the landscape to emphasize the blue captured in ice. In my search for the right images, I have tried to avoid as many elements of the present time as possible; things that would remind me of everyday life.

The calm misty weather gives me a sense of desolation and makes the whole world feel smaller.

The slow rate of traveling by sailing ship influences my way of taking photographs; I seek stillness, harmony and tragedy in these otherworldly landscapes. In search of beauty, the beauty of emptiness and cold.

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA 

 

RENE KOSTER

@koster_rene 

René Koster's work concentrates mostly on travel photography and portraits for magazines around the globe. Work from his Antarctica project was awarded The Travel Photographer of the Year. Check out his website here.

NAMIBIA: Colors of a Country

Namibia is a land of contrasts and extremes. Situated between the Namib and the Kalahari deserts, Namibia gets less rain than any other country in sub-Saharan Africa. Namibia’s coastal desert is one of the planet’s oldest, with powerful offshore winds sculpting the highest sand dunes in the world, in some places rising more than 1,000 feet.

Water — or more to the point, its absence — defines life in Namibia.

Hot and arid in the interior, Namibia’s coast is surprisingly cool and moist, the product of the cold Atlantic colliding with Africa’s warm and dry southern tip. Seals and sea birds come by the thousands to congregate in this narrow temperate zone.

In the rest of the country, only where there is water is there life. Here is my vision of this untouched and primal land, with its towering red sand dunes, vast deserts, and wild animals struggling to survive. 

KOLMANSKOP

Kolmanskop is a deserted German mining settlement located in Namibia. The town was abandoned in the 1950s, and the desert has been reclaiming it ever since, creating an interesting mix of colorful painted walls and sweeping sand dunes engulfing entire rooms.

QUIVER TREE FOREST

The Quiver Tree Forest, near Keetmanshoop, contains a collection of the so-called “quiver trees” which aren’t really trees at all, but rather a species of aloe, a flowering succulent plant.

NAMIB-NAUKLUFT NATIONAL PARK

Namib-Naukluft National Park preserves part of the extensive Namib Desert. The most famous area of the park is called Sossusvlei, which contains the tallest sand dunes in the world, rising more than 1,000 feet above the desert floor. Oxidization of iron in the sand gives them a reddish-orange color, which becomes especially intense when bathed in the warm light of sunrise and sunset.

One of the most stunning places in Sossusvlei is known as Deadvlei (which means “dead marsh”). The area used to be wet and covered in trees, but 600 or 700 years ago the water dried and the trees died, their eerie skeletons preserved by the dry air.

ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK

Etosha National Park is a beautiful national park in northwestern Namibia, known for its abundance of large game animals, including elephant, lion, rhino, giraffe, cheetah, zebra, and many more. What amazes me most about Etosha is the clear, strong light at sunrise and sunset, bathing animals and landscapes in warm color.

 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON MAPTIA 

 

IAN PLANT

@IanPlantPhoto 

World-renowned professional photographer, writer, and adventurer Ian Plant is a frequent contributor to and blogger for Outdoor Photographer Magazine, a Contributing Editor to Popular Photography Magazine, a monthly columnist for Landscape Photography Magazine, and a Tamron Image Master. Ian is also the author of numerous books and instructional videos. See more of his work at www.ianplant.com

CONFLICT

Watch the following 5 episodes of Conflict free at http://thisisconflict.com. What happens off the front lines, when the combat concludes or has not yet begun, but guns and poverty abound? Pete Muller is an award-winning photojournalist whose work and life serve as enduring provocations on the tensions that lie beneath cycles of conflict. He was named by TIME Magazine as the 2010 Wire Photographer of the Year. At 29 years old he was the youngest person ever to receive the honor. Through his work he aims to illustrate broader issues through individual stories. He strives to create images that ask viewers to give emotional and intellectual consideration to the lives and experiences of those depicted.

What happens off the front lines, when the combat concludes (or has not yet begun), but guns and poverty abound? Pete Muller is an award-winning photojournalist whose work work provides insight into the tensions that lie beneath conflict cycles. 

Conflict Zones Through The Lens of Marcus Bleasdale

“This is an exciting time for digital storytellers.”

Truer words have never been spoken. But in the spirit of the commencement of this year’s Social Good Summit, it should be noted that these storytellers also hold a great responsibility to the masses. As a distinguished photographer, Marcus Bleasdale embodies this sense of responsibility in his coverage of conflict areas around the world through the medium of his trusted camera lens. Over the past 15 years, the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has captured his steady attention.

Throughout his time working within the DRC, Bleasdale has gained a first-hand perspective into a nation that, while rich in minerals, has been coerced into a haunting reality of violence, disease, poverty and profound injustice. Children are stripped of their adolescence, forced into militant lives plagued by mindless violence at the behest of their devious superiors. Families are torn apart, displaced, and involuntary bare witness to the perils of life within the misleading comfort of their own backyards. 
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As the conflict within the borders has continued to run its rampant course over the past 15+ years, 2 million Congolese natives have been displaced, 40,000 women fall victim of sexual violence annually, and over 5.5 million deaths have been recorded as a result of rampant disease, and violence throughout the region. In his Keynote adderess to the Social Good audience, Bleasdale stressed that these are simply the statistics; his images however, are what interpret the reality.

An important distinction however, is how Bleasdale goes about creating a narrative of an area so riddled by conflict for decades. He goes into depth about how he works to construct such a narrative in saying:

“For me, I’m trying to engage in order to enhance the narrative that I’m trying to tell. There are many different aspects of the story to engage with - the mind, the child soldiers, the sexual violence, displacement, horrific health issues that have spread through the DRC. I have to touch on each one of those in each unique situation to try and engage with a subject in a way that will truly hone the message that this should stop.”

He delves deeper in his philosophy toward photojournalism in conflict areas, stating, “Every image cannot be misery, and should not be so difficult to look at that you want to turn away. You have to also try to look for the beauty, and the hope, to show the opportunity that is available that has not necessarily been seized.”

Having covered the Democratic Republic of Congo for more than 15 years now, Bleasdale’s knowledge and wisdom towards his craft should be respected. As for his advice for the brave soul aspiring to photojournalism of this nature; one word came to mind, patience.

“Everything takes time, especially when working within the areas I have. In relation to my work in the DRC, you can’t tell that story in a week, a month. I’ve been telling that story for 15 years now and still I don’t think it’s finished, because it’s still going on.“

An award-winning photographer who has been heralded by the US House of Representatives, The United Nations and the House of Parliament in the UK, Bleasedale will undoubtedly continue to be a respected voice within the realm of photography, specifically within regions of conflict.

He can be followed on twitter @marcusbleasedale.

ANDREW BRIDGE @Bridgin_TheGap

Andrew is Editor-in-Chief of CATALYST's Social Good Summit Daily, and Managing Editor of CATALYST. He is a global enthusiast with a passion for the road less traveled. As a frequent collaborator with World Hip Hop Market and Nomadic Wax, Andrew has worked with numerous socially conscious artists from around the world in the pursuit of inspiring cultural understanding and exchange through entertainment. This fascination with the world at large has taken him to over 20 countries (so far) through studying, volunteering, and writing about his travels, with no signs of slowing.