A little history about the Republic of Angola... it was formerly a Portuguese colony. It has been one of Africa’s more isolated countries for tourism and one of the last great travel mysteries. It has is been virtually untouched by foreigners because it was closed off to most outsiders for decades due to stringent visa policies, high prices, and the travel warnings - all that before COVID even happened. With the exception of the development of the country’s substantial petroleum reserves, Angola’s economy has long been unable to take advantage of its natural resources because of the devastation caused by the protracted civil war lasting 27 years and only ending in 2002. Angola has beautiful tribes that follow the time-honored traditions and ways of life largely untouched by the modern world. By traveling in a mobile tented camp with an amazing support team, who set up spacious tents for us to sleep in, showers, toilets, a kitchen, a dining tent and a battery charging area that ran off a generator, we were able to go into very remote locations and live right next to the villages, spending a few days
at each place to establish more of a connection with the local people. Instead of just dropping in and taking pictures for a few hours and going on to the next place, we stayed and brought food - bags of maize and flour, goats and threw parties in the villages to get into the spirit of their culture. It was greatly appreciated and facilitated their willingness to be photographed by our group. People from the tribes were constantly dropping by our camp, when we weren’t in their village, so we took advantage of having more photo opportunities with them and set up a makeshift “portrait studio” under our large dining tent. We were encouraged to bring items that we wanted to use to enhance portrait photography. I brought a silver/gold reflector and others brought large cloth backdrops (the black one was the most popular), other reflectors and full flash set ups. We even improvised with tilting tables on end that had an interesting
Mucubal men doing their traditional jumping dance and enjoying the party.
A young Himba girl tending goats in the village kraal.
A Mucubal man displays his machete with the moon rising behind him.
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