Niger Delta

From the series Nigeria’s Oil Pirates

Militants working under Ateke Tom, the big chief of the MEND (Movement For The Emancipation of The Niger Delta), travelling to camp nine, which is just one of the eleven camps he rules in the mangroves of the Niger Delta.

Veronique de Viguerie, photographer

village of Foro

Girls and young boys clamber up a steep path to the village of Foro in Ethiopia, each carrying up to six gallons of cloudy river water. They make the 2-3 hour round-trip several times a day. Boys are exempted from the chore once they reach the age of 7/8, but females spend most of their lives hauling water.

Dogon mask dance

Dogon mask dance

These dances are performed at several times during the year, and serve to celebrate the start of the rainy seasons to bring about abundant rainfall, at the end of the harvest seasons to ensure plentiful crops, and also as funerary rituals to commemorate the dead. The dances involve dozens of dancers representing figures from the animal world, male and female powers, and the after-world, while the masks represent spirits, women, midwives, witchdoctors, snakes, antelopes and other various representations.

The Dogon are an ethnic group living in the central plateau region of Mali, south of the Niger bend near the city of Bandiagara in the Mopti region. They are best known for their mythology, their mask dances, wooden sculpture and their architecture.

Maynar Switzer, photographer