“Through Dust and Silence – Tankwa”

This image was taken in the Tankwa Karoo, during one of the most intense sandstorms I’ve ever experienced there — air thick with dust, visibility almost nonexistent, the land swallowed up by wind and grit.  And yet, out of that storm, came this quiet scene: a simple donkey cart, two men, two donkeys, making their way slowly through the swirling, blinding chaos.

This is not a staged image. This is life, unfolding in one of South Africa’s most remote and unforgiving landscapes. These men are farm workers—people who live and labour across the scattered, sun-hardened farmlands of the Karoo, far from any town or comfort. They are accustomed to the extremes: heat, drought, isolation. Yet even so, the storm was brutal—air unbreathable, the land erased in a haze of ancient sand.

And still, they moved forward.

There is something in this moment that goes beyond hardship. It’s about resilience, yes, but also dignity. Endurance. The quiet power of those who continue on without complaint, without witness, because there is no other option.

I photograph intuitively, drawn to what is unseen or easily passed over: the texture of spirit, the weight of silence, the invisible threads of meaning. In this moment, I felt something ancient and unspoken—the bond between man, animal, and earth… and the raw beauty of  brutal survival.

This photograph is a tribute—not only to the people of the Tankwa Karoo, but to the unseen strength carried every day by those who live at the edges of this world.