Mozambican Sunrise

On my first day driving to a construction site in Moatize, in Mozambique’s Tete province, the sun was rising behind the baobab trees. The whole sky had turned soft pink and orange. It was breathtaking, and I knew straight away that I had to capture it.

The baobabs are the heart of this painting: great bare branches spreading out against the glowing sky, with the largest tree standing slightly apart from the others. In the foreground, a railway line curves away into the bush, past an old wooden fence and dry grass painted in purples, ochres and olive greens. That railway carries coal from the mine at Moatize all the way to the port at Nacala, so it is also a reminder of the work that brought me to Mozambique. Two small birds fly across the sky on the left.

For me, this painting holds on to that first morning, and to the beauty I found in a place I had come to for work.