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 moment, the zebra seemed to disappear into the landscape and emerge from it at the same time.

This is one of the things I love about photographing animals in the wild.

You can arrive with an idea of what you are looking for, but the landscape keeps offering you something you hadn't anticipated.

A movement.

A change in light.

A cloud of dust.

A moment that lasts only seconds.

And sometimes the most extraordinary images come from things that were there all along.

I had walked past that dust bowl before.

It took a zebra to show me what was there.

There is something wonderfully African about that.

Give me a zebra, a cloud of dust and the right light...

and voilà — African magic.


Continue exploring

Collected Moments of Survival
Explore the drawings, stories and book behind the project.
Click here to Explore the project

Original artwork
Original works from the series are available to reserve ahead of the December exhibition.
Click Here View available works 

Next story
At the Edge of Appearance

Location: Naukluft, Namibia

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