The Day May Break (Relié)

The Day May Break was photographed in Zimbabwe and Kenya in late 2020. It is the first part of a global series portraying people and animais that have been impacted by environmental degradation and destruction. The people in the photos have ail 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 animais are almost ail long-term rescues, victims of everything from the poaching of their parents, to habitat destruction and poisoning. These animais can never be released back into the wild. As a result, they are habituated, and so it was safe for human strangers to be close to them, and photographed in the same frame at the same time.
The fog is the unifying visuai. We increasingly find ourselves in a kind of limbo, a once-recognizabie world now fading from view. Created by fog machines on location, this often renders the animais almost a dream, or a memory of what the people once experienced in their cives. It is aiso an echo of the suffocating smoke from the wildfires, driven by climate change, devastating so much of the pianet.
However, in spite of their ioss, these people and animais are the survivors. And therein lies possibility and hope.