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What Is Seen Is Never Whole

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What Is Seen Is Never Whole Charcoal on Canson Montval 300gsm 70cm x 90cm This is probably my favourite image from the entire collection. I think it is because, every time I look at it, I see something slightly different. The first thing I notice is the eye. That gaze again. There is something about the way a zebra looks at you that is difficult to ignore. Even when almost none of the animal is visible, the gaze gives it an extraordinary presence. But then my eye moves away from the eye. I notice the small section of mane. And then the stripes. They begin to become something else. For a moment, I am no longer looking at the markings of a zebra. I am looking at lines and shapes that seem to create their own landscape. They rise and fall. They move across the page. They create hills and valleys, shadows and spaces. And yet, somehow, I never lose sight of the animal. This is something I find fascinating about photographing and drawing wildlife. We often think of a portrait as showing us t...
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At the Edge of Appearance

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  At the Edge of Appearance Charcoal on Paper 70cm x 30cm Sometimes an image makes me look twice. And then again. This is one of those images. There isn't much to see at first. One eye. Part of a muzzle. A few strong lines of the zebra's markings. And yet there is no doubt what I am looking at. The rest of the animal is almost absent from the frame, but somehow I don't need to see it. My mind fills in what is missing. Perhaps that is what keeps drawing me back to this image. The more I look, the more I see. The lines become less like markings and more like a kind of visual landscape of their own. They lead my eye towards the eye of the animal, and suddenly I am aware of that gaze again. It is unmistakable. Even with so little of the animal revealed, there is a presence that feels complete. I think this is one of the things that fascinates me about photography. We often think that seeing more means understanding more. But sometimes the opposite is true. When something is onl...
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Location: Namibia
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Breath of the Earth

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Breath of the Earth Charcoal on paper 70cm x 90cm As a photographer, I have always been fascinated by dust. There is something about the way it changes an image — softening the landscape, catching the light, creating atmosphere where there was none a moment before. Some of my favourite photographs have happened because of dust. An animal appears through it and, for a few seconds, seems almost to emerge from mist. I had walked past this particular dust bowl many times. I knew it was there. I knew what the animals used it for. But I had never really stopped to think about what it might offer photographically. Then one day, a zebra dropped to the ground. Almost immediately, dust began to rise around it. I turned the lens towards it. Of course, I knew why the zebra was doing what it was doing. There was nothing unusual about the behaviour itself. But suddenly the ordinary became something else. The dust lifted around the animal, catching the light and softening the edges of its body. For a...
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Location: Naukluft, Namibia
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The Gaze That Does Not Yield

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The Gaze That Does Not Yield Charcoal on Paper 70cm x 90cm There was something different about the zebras that day. I had spent time watching them at the water, and what struck me was how intently they observed their surroundings. I was hidden from sight, so they could not see me. But they could see the camera. It was such a small change. A round glass disc where there had not been one before. Everything else was exactly as it usually was when they came to drink. The landscape was familiar. The water was where it should be. Nothing obvious had changed. And yet they noticed. Again and again, I watched them stop and look. Not dramatically. There was no sudden panic. Just an alertness that seemed almost disproportionate to the tiny alteration in their surroundings. They were watching the camera lens. And I began to wonder how much more closely they must observe the world than we do. We move through familiar places and very quickly stop seeing them. We know the road, the room, the view fro...
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Location: Naukluft, Namibia
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Beyond the Last Glance

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Beyond The Last Glance Charcoal on Paper 90cm x 70cm There is something about watching a wild animal move away from you that I find unexpectedly poignant. Perhaps it is because, as an observer, I am always aware that the encounter is temporary. I may have been sitting quietly for hours, watching the herd move around me, and then suddenly one animal turns and begins to walk away. There is an almost instinctive feeling that it might disappear forever. But of course, that is my story — not theirs. For the zebra, there is no sense of departure. Nothing has ended. It is simply moving on. It may be going towards water, back towards the herd, towards food, towards shelter. It may be responding to something I cannot see or hear. Whatever the reason, its life continues beyond the point at which I can see it. That distinction stayed with me when I made this drawing. I deliberately allowed much of the animal to disappear into the white space. There is enough of the body for us to understand that ...
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Location: Schlesien, Namibia
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The Things I Choose Not To Draw

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  There is a strange discipline involved in drawing a zebra. The animal appears to offer the artist everything. Every stripe seems to demand attention. Every change in tone appears to need recording. The surface of the body is filled with subtle variations of texture, light and shadow. And when the subject is Hartmann's mountain zebra, there is an almost irresistible temptation to try to capture it all. For a long time, I thought that was what drawing was about. Looking carefully. Recording accurately. Leaving nothing out. But years of observing these animals have gradually taught me something rather different. Sometimes the most important part of a drawing is what I choose not to put into it. The more time I spent with the zebras, the less interested I became in simply reproducing their stripes. The pattern that makes a zebra immediately recognisable can also become a distraction. It is possible to draw every stripe perfectly and still fail to capture the animal standing ...
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Location: Naukluft, Namibia
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Learning to Remain Still

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  Fragments I There is something curious that happens when you spend long enough in wild places. At first, like most people, you arrive with expectation. You hope to see something. You look constantly toward the horizon, scanning the landscape for movement, for activity, for that moment of discovery that justifies the journey. But nature rarely works on our timetable. Over time I have learned that finding what you seek is not always about searching harder. More often, it requires the exact opposite. It requires stillness. Working on my recent encounters with Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra has reminded me of this lesson repeatedly. In the harsh and often unforgiving environment in which they survive, nothing happens quickly. Water is never assumed. Shelter is scarce. Movement is deliberate. Energy is conserved. And so, in order to truly observe them, one has to begin surrendering one’s own sense of urgency. Waiting becomes part of the process. I have spent long periods simply sitting qu...
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Location: Schlesien, Namibia
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