This day is the beginning of our new site and it seems like a good idea to start with the ‘real’ beginning: the first blog posts written after spending the first few days in Stone Town.
We were filled with positivity and were looking forward to what the future would have in store for us.
Now, two years later, we have forgotten about the empty promises made by soul mates from tete mozambique and we focus on the many positive expereriences of meeting photographers from all over the world.
We’d like to start with this poem by Mary Gaunt:
The fascination Africa has always held for those who have visited her shores has hitherto been fascination of the mistress, never of the wife.
She held out no lure, for she was no courtesan. A man came to her in his eager youth asking, praying that she would give him that which should make all life good; and she trusted and opened her arms.
What she had to give she gave freely, generously; there was no stint, no lack. and he took. Her charm he counted as a matter of course, her tenderness was his due, her passion his pleasure; but the fascination he barely admitted could not keep him.
Though she had given all, she had no rights and, when other desires called, he left her, left her with words of pity that were an injury, of regret that were an insult.
But all this is changing.
Africa holds. The man who has known Africa longs for her.
In the sordid city streets he remembers the might and loneliness of her forests, by the rippling brook he remembers the wide rivers rushing tumultuous from the lakes, in the night when on the roof the rain is plashing drearily, he remembers the mellow tropical nights, the sky of velvet far away, the stars like points of gold, the warm moonlight that, with its deeper shadows, made a fairer world.
Even the languor and the heat he longs for, the white surf on the yellow sand of the beaches, the thick jungle growth densely matted, rankly luxuriant, pulsating with the irrepressible life of the tropics.
All other places are tame
Mary Gaunt sierra leone 1910
Africa and photography are connected like yin and yang.
To live here in Africa, to be able to create and work on our own collections, to advise collegues and help them with their projects, it truly is a gift of Life.
