Showcasing Mother Earth’s quiet beauty

Bay photographer Margot Muir’s wildlife images have been showcased in a prominent American photo magazine.

Muir, 57, said on Monday she was delighted when the online magazine, South x Southeast, accepted her contribution.

“They were preparing their May/June edition and I really liked their orientation around ‘Mothers’.

“They wanted three images and a narrative so I geared my package around ‘Mother Earth’ and sent it off.

“Their focus is on the American south so I was very honoured and excited when they said they would be using my photographs,” Muir said.

She said she concentrated on quieter and more intimate pictures of wild animals rather than spectacle.

“I’ve been lucky enough to spend a lot of time in wilderness and the feminine aspects of the wild —  the living ongoing experience of being wild — is more interesting to me than the moment of a kill or the chase. I love the subtlety of portraiture, which is what I focus on.

“A  portrait is a richer interpretation of the familiar, emotional qualities of the animal.”

Muir grew up and went to school in Cape Town before studying art and photography at Cape Technikon.

She did a stint as a photographer at The Argus newspaper and then completed a BA at the University of Cape Town before moving up to Port Elizabeth.

She subsequently did an honours and then a Masters in graphic design at Nelson Mandela University, and lectured visual arts there until the end of 2019.

She started taking pictures while still at school and though she learnt from her older brother who was a photographer, the real trigger was less admirable, she laughed.

“I had a school art assignment to do on the impressionists.

“I procrastinated and procrastinated and was running out of time so I grabbed a camera and took a whole lot of pictures and submitted those — and got 100%.

“That was all the encouragement I needed.”

She said her work was underpinned by her love of wilderness, to which she had been introduced by her husband, Wilderness Foundation Africa CEO Andrew Muir.

It had helped her get through a difficult period in her life and was the source of endless fascination to her.

Quoting eco-psychologist Theodore Roszak, Muir said humans would lose an integral part of themselves if they allowed the wilderness to disappear.

“Wilderness is the core of the natural world and a place where human nature is densely embedded.”

She said though the experience of being restrained under the Covid-19 lockdown was the opposite of the freedom of the wilderness, it had a positive value.

“I think it has made people more aware of their surroundings in an immediate sense but also, I hope, in the broad long term with the realisation that we need to protect wild areas and to confront climate change.”