THE NEW TESTAMENT

This photograph, printed in the London Times on Saturday July 2nd, was taken only four days earlier in South Sudan.

In retrospect, my photograph Mankind, taken in the same country in 2014, was a stepping stone for me. It was authentic, it had a biblical scale to it and could be looked at for a long time. Haunting and hellish one minute and serene and ethereal the next. I knew it would be a mistake to go back and try to copy what I did eight years ago; it would hint at a lack of creative progression and courage. I needed to do better and offer a new story, to go backwards would be damaging at many levels. I had been preoccupied by that fear for some time and I knew I had to be bold when I returned at the end of June 2022.

The Lakes areas of South Sudan is just about on a map, but way off the grid for most. It is the most basic of existences and the only material source of employment is the cattle camps. In 2014, I filmed near the town of Yirol in a camp on a Nile tributary, but this time I wanted to travel further into the interior and find an even bigger camp on the way to Rumbek. My premise was to play on scale and my leaning was always to go bigger not smaller. The Dinka tribe are the world’s tallest people, their cattle camps are the biggest of their kind and the cattle horns are Jurassic. This is a place to play on the word “big”.