In this series with an epic feel, my aim is to depict a new way of seeing the animal condition. I imagined
the condition of a wild animal whose home is under an onslaught of unfettered greed. Then, armed with a
modified camera, I photographed wildlife for long stretches of time, looking for scenes that lent
themselves to a high contrast treatment since black and white contrast is at the heart of this series.
Going from colour to black and white removes one layer of reality. Monochrome as used in this series
also represents ‘life drained of colour’. I use shades of light and dark, as well as absence and presence
of sky and clouds, to represent a sense of despair and hope of wild animals under a threat beyond their
comprehension. Furthermore, high contrast disconcertingly alters the environment. All this hopefully
opens up the viewer’s imagination, enabling thinking about the future of wild animals.
Photographing masses of animals in this way, I cannot help but think of the photographs of the lost boys
of Sudan, a group of 20,000 boys of the Nuer and Dinka ethnic groups who were displaced during the
Second Sudanese Civil War (1987-2005), marching, forever marching, to find a home, raising the
question, what is it to be continuously robbed of habitat, to be cast out without thought?

In seeing animals retreating from the threat of human encroachment, from something immense
happening, I also see a metaphor for the human condition of endless migration. I am also hinting at the
limits on freedom and the limits on choice. Finally, there is the question: is harmonious co-existence, in a
much wider sense, in endless retreat too?