Mana Morimoto's paper embroidery

Mana Morimoto's self-portrait. 

Mana Morimoto is a Japanese artist who combines black and white photographs with colourful thread embroideries. In an interview with Artchipel, Morimoto, who is also known as MNMRMT, spoke about her creative process and how she developed her aesthetic:

"I like the idea of using both digital and analog tool in my work; it can be a vintage photo, an image that I found on Google or a profile picture that I steal from my friend’s Facebook. I used to embroider on colour images at first but realise that the embroidered threads go better on a black and white image. The colour compositions become more three-dimension and vivid. So I decide to systematically change the colour picture into black and white. I print it out on a thick paper and make a bunch of holes using a needle before stitching. I complete the process by scanning and uploading the final work on my Tumblr."

Morimoto also says that the stitching and weaving process is therapeutic for her and always makes her feel better about things in her life.

Living in the hottest place on earth

The Afar people are the perfect example of how human beings have the tremendous ability to adapt to extraordinary circumstances. They live in the Danakil Desert, which extends into Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti. The deepest part of the desert lies 100m below sea level in what is known as the Danakil Depression. It is considered the hottest place on earth and receives almost no rain. The Afar people are nomads who raise goats, sheep and sometimes cattle in the desert. For them, the salt deposits that cover large parts of the desert are like a currency. They mine salt slabs and transport them using camels to markets in Ethiopia and the Sudan. 

Virginia Morell, who travelled to the Danakil Desert on an assignment for National Geographic, got the opportunity to join a salt-trading caravan that was making its way through the desert. She says she was able to gain some insight into the Afar way of life.

"Already, following our week in Hamed Ela, a dust-and-fly-stricken hamlet, I'd formed some opinions. One was that people can and will live anywhere—even in the Danakil, a place of dry sands and even drier gravel beds, rocky lava flows, active volcanoes, burning salt flats, temperatures that often top 120°F, winds that choke you with dust, and suffocating days of no wind at all. Even worse, this place where rain falls sparingly at the best of times was now in the grip of a bad drought, and the half-mummified carcasses of camels and goats lay strewn across the sands." 

Italian photographer Anthony Pappone specialises in festival, ceremony and tribe photography. He travelled to the Danakil Desert where he took photos of the Afar people. His photos capture the harshness of the region spectacularly.

Woodlane Village photo story

I'm taking a module in photojournalism this semester. This is one of my assignments, a 5-image photo story about Woodlane Village, an informal settlement in Pretoria East. 

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Woodlane Village is an informal settlement nestled between the afluent homes of Mooikloof and Woodlands in Pretoria East.

Nicknamed "Plastic View", it is home to about 3000 residents from Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and neighbouring provinces in South Africa.

It was initially started when 500 homeless people staying in a nearby field came together to form the village, which is adjacent to the Moreleta Park NG Church and close to the Pretoria East Hospital and shopping centre, Woodlands Boulevard.

The community has been embroiled in several court cases since its inception six years ago, the latest in which sees homeowners in the surrounding suburbs taking the Tshwane Metro Council to court for not controlling access to the village.

A 2009 court ruling ordered the council to maintain the fence surrounding the village and to ensure that security guards are placed at both entrances. Homeowners are claiming that the council is not doing this properly.

While the court battle questioning these residents' right to live in the settlement continues, the people of Woodlane Village go on with their daily lives, trying to find employment by selling fresh fruit and vegetables, running colour spaza shops, barbers and other small makeshift businesses.

A young boy who resides in Woodlane Village.

A father and his son sitting outside their home in the Zimbabwean section of Woodlane Village.

A student from Lyttleton Manor, a high school in Centurion, plays soccer with residents of Woodlane Village.

Two young boys drag branches through the sand as the sun goes down.

Two young boys observing something in the distance while playing.