Treasures of Zimbabwe

My Photo scholarship 2010 entry

Worldwide | Friday, October 15, 2010 | 5 photos

In April 2010 my wife and I visited the western portion of Zimbabwe for as holiday of 1 week. On the one hand the experience was unbelievable because of the beauty of the wildlife and nature of the country. On the other hand it was a very sad experience to see the poverty and hardship of the people of Zimbabwe that was caused by the harsh dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe.

On my return I looked through my photographs of the trip and realized that I did not take many photos of people, poverty and sadness. I think this is because I wanted to portray the beauty of the land and that there is still hope for Zimbabwe.

We traveled by car from South Africa and then visited three main tourist attractions in Zimbabwe namely the Victoria Falls, Kariba dam and the Hwange National Park. The Victoria falls is located in the north western corner where the borders of Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia meet. No photograph can describe the magnificence of this natural wonder. (Photo 1 was taken at the Victoria falls). The Kariba dam is a man-made dam and is one of the largest dams in the world, standing 128 m tall and is 579 m in length (Photo 2 & 3). The Hwange National Park is the largest game reserve in Zimbabwe with 105 mammal species (Photo 4 & 5).

Although I am a Professional Civil Engineer, my passion is photography and the reason for entering this competition is hopefully one step closer in changing my career to Professional Photographer. I am a very adventures person that loves the outdoors, wildlife and traveling. My mission with my photography is to portray people, nature and everyday life and objects in a beautiful and unusual way.