Namibia

Gerald Hoberman is a master of the art of photography and, with his son Marc, has produced a fascinating portrait of Namibia. Their lenses roam widely as they scan the environment to capture the essence of the subject under scrutiny. The results are sheer poetry: the wondrous shapes of the Namib Desert, its dunes, gravel plains and mountains rendered in rich colors of apricot and lavender, copper and honey...a flock of flamingos flying across Sandwich Harbor lagoon, casting stippled shadows on the water below... and the fog-shrouded Skeleton Coast - 'the coast of diamonds and death' - where ships come to grief in a capricious sea. Gerald and Marc train their lenses on the reed-fringed waterways in the Caprivi and Okavango regions, the wildlife kingdom of Etosha National Park and the frolicking seals crowding the desert beaches. Their photographs also reflect the diversity of the country's people, from the San, whose predecessors left a priceless treasury of art on rocks and cave walls, to the pastoral Himba, the 'ochre people' who live in the rugged Kaokoveld. The European influence does not escape the photographers' viewfinder either. Namibia was once part of the German empire and, as the photographs show, the colonial ambiance still pervades the capital city and smaller towns. Gerald and Marc ventured into Namibia's heart and emerged with a remarkable synthesis of images and words that reflect the harsh beauty, primordial grandeur and rich diversity of this extraordinary land.