In 1855, the Makololo chief, Sekeletu, was setting out to take his strange new friend, David Livingstone, to see the great
waterfall Mosi oa Tunya ('the Smoke that Thunders').
Sekeletu turned to Livingstone and asked:
"Do you have smoke that thunders in your country?"

Join these early explorers on this virtual African expedition
How did they get there; what did they see; what did they say?


Mood Queen

The Victoria Falls.  Truly the Queen of all the World’s waterfalls and of course one of the 7 natural wonders of the World.

But there is much more to this African nature spectacular than is usually seen by the hurried tourist.  It is an ecosystem in itself, full of dramatic contrasts.  The constant cooling clouds of spray from the Falls maintain luxuriant rain forest habitats; the Zambezi River above the Falls is wide and slow, but deceptively dangerous; the vegetation rich and verdant.  When the Zambezi reaches the chasm that is the Victoria Falls, it drops uninterrupted some 100m, displacing the air in the gorge and powering rainbow-forming water spray up into the sky for hundreds of feet above the Falls.  In its precipitous fall, this huge river changes its width from 1.7km (1 mile) to just 20m - and its flow direction by a full 90degrees.  And all within just a few seconds.  Then below the Falls, the river rips through its black basalt gorges, its new route contrasting sharply with its leisurely course above the Falls.  The habitat down below is arid, treacherously steep, dramatic, and shoe-meltingly hot.

Within these major contrasts, for the nature photographer, the river and Falls change not by the week or day, but by the minute - the light; the rising clouds of wind-blown Falls spray; the almost ever-present rainbows; the dark drama of the Batoka Gorge; all this every bit as spectacular as the Falls themselves.

The 'Spirit of the Land' project is centred on Africa's remote and unknown landscapes and of course the Victoria Falls tourist site is hardly remote or unknown.  But a little way beyond the well-beaten track, and at the right time of day, there are many views and scenes of the Falls, of this section of the Zambezi, and of the gorges and Batoka Gorge below the Falls, that are most definitely remote and unknown.

It is the awe and wonder inspired by these constantly changing scenes that the work in the Spirit of the Land project tries to portray – hopefully in a way that does some justice to some very special places; in pictures that warrant a second look; and which give something of the feel, the ‘Spirit’, of this land.  And of the Queen in all her moods.

To view the photographs at full size and read the stories behind the pictures,
click on the images below to open an exhibition series, and then on the small images