RICHARD AND SKY, ZIMBABWE, 2020, photographed together, from The Day May Break.

20 x 26.6 inch image size on 24 x 30.6 inch paper, Edition of 15

28 x 37.2 inch image size on 32 x 41 inches paper, Limited Edition of 12.

Archival Pigment Prints on Hahemhule Museum Etching 350gsm.

With signed and numbered label.

Richard was a maize farmer & cattle owner, but severe droughts from 2010 dramatically impacted him. All his cows died from disease. He turned to farming tobacco to survive. Richard now struggles to provide for his family and send his kids to school.

Sky is 4 years old, a southern African giraffe. She came from a farm where the wildlife was nearly all killed by settlers, leaving just 2 giraffes. Due to her age & perhaps also trauma, the female was unable to raise her calves. Wild is Life came to rescue the calves, where they now live safely.

The southern African giraffe, now less than 30,000 left in the wild, is listed as threatened. Across Africa, there are now barely more than 100,000 giraffes.

The Day May Break is the first part of a global series portraying people and animals that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction.

The people in the photos have all been badly affected by climate change - some displaced by cyclones that destroyed their homes, others such as farmers displaced and impoverished by years-long severe droughts.

The photographs were taken at five sanctuaries/ conservancies. The animals are almost all long-term rescues, victims of everything from the poaching of their parents, to habitat destruction and poisoning.

These animals can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are habituated. So the animals and people were photographed together in the same frame.

The fog is the unifying visual. We increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a natural world now fading from view.

Created by fog machines on location, the fog is also an echo of the suffocating smoke from the wildfires, intensified by climate change, devastating so much of the planet.

However, in spite of their loss, these people and animals are the survivors. And therein lies possibility and hope.