My first impression of Georgia was a lasting one. I arrived two years ago without knowing anything about the place, only to find that its streets were crawling with tigers, wolves, bears and hippos.
These aren’t metaphors I’ll have you know. The animals had literally escaped the zoo on the day I arrived, and the police and the army were having a competition to hunt them in the streets. Or “liquidate” them as the Ministry of Internal Affairs called it. After a strange sequence of events, I find myself living here. And I can confirm that this former Soviet republic has been consistent in its levels of craziness. Which takes a lot, considering I arrived in a real-life version of Jumanji. In the time that I’ve lived here, I’ve realised that I like Georgia because of her mysterious beauty, but I love her because of her madness. I wrote about this for TheDifferent.tv. You can read it here: www.thedifferent.tv/the-tiger-of-tbilisi. Young men dig holes to plant tobacco near Zomba, Malawi. They start work before sunrise to avoid the heat. Women follow them, carrying pipes of water to irrigate the plants. Planting tobacco is thirsty work; it takes around 20 litres to secure each plant in the soil. I'm drawn to photographing silhouettes, and the combination of early morning sunlight and the clouds of dust made for a good source of backlighting. This photograph is currently exhibited at Casa Saraceni Gallery in Bologna, Italy as part of the Syngenta Photography Award international tour. It was also featured in a column written by Bill Gates for the South African daily newspaper Die Burger about the future of Africa. He probably wrote it pro bono. |
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May 2018
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