INTO AFRICA
African Parks has also created countless jobs on the island, from rangers who patrol the dunes and reefs to staff working at eco-lodges. Most of the rangers are local, and they’ ve become ambassadors for conservation, teaching their neighbours and communities why protecting the islands matters not just for wildlife, but for their own livelihoods. There’ s a quiet dignity in their work. You can feel it when they talk about the dugongs – those gentle, elusive sea cows that graze the seagrass meadows around the archipelago. Fewer than 300 remain in this part of the ocean, and Bazaruto is their last real refuge.
My mission was to capture this delicate balance: the interconnectedness between people, wildlife, and the landscapes that hold them together. The photographs that form the Bazaruto Collection were taken from above, during a series of flights over the islands. We chartered a small helicopter and, in true photographer fashion, I asked the pilot to remove the doors. Dangling out the side
Dances of Dugong Bay – Two manta rays glide along the reef, symbols of the archipelago’ s fragile beauty.
Muluku’ s Promise – Fishermen’ s dhows rest on sandbanks during low tide – a rhythm as old as the island itself. with a camera strapped to me( and a questionable seatbelt), I tried to frame the dance between sand, tide, and life below.
Timing those flights was a kind of art form in itself. I needed the tide low enough to shape the sandbanks but high enough to illuminate the reefs. The best moments came at low tide, when the fishermen’ s dhows rested on mirror-flat shallows and patterns of sand and current revealed themselves like brushstrokes. Clouds were my enemy; their shadows streaked across the turquoise, hiding the detail of the water. But when conditions aligned, the view was transcendent.
On one particular morning, luck gave us more than good light. As we passed over an unusual reef, two manta rays glided just below the surface, their wings casting faint ripples through the water. That image became Dancers of Dugong Bay – one of our bestsellers from the collection.
86 | SUMMER 2025 / 26 • rovesa. co. za