Riefenstahl's photographs preserve a mythic vision of this Eden before the Fall,a romantic lost world,captured in images as powerfully seductive as the artist herself.

An indelible Love for Africa

By Kevin Brownlow

The Mesakin Quissayr

Masai,Samburu and Nomads

The Shilluk

Dinka,Murle, Nuer and Latuka

The Nuba of Kau

Captions

Biography

Filmography and Bibliography

If Leni Riefenstahl had done nothing but visit Africa and bring back her photographs, her place in history would be secure. For these pictures are an extraordinary record. Equally extraordinary is her stamina; while shemade her first visit in her mid-50s, she undertook her most recent at 98.Her love for Africa resulted in three photographic books before this one.

 Her first expedition should have acted as aversion therapy and put her offfor life, for it could hardly have been more disastrous. In 1956 she set out to make a film about the illegal slave trade in Africa. While travelling north of Nairobi, the driver of her jeep tried to avoid a tiny dik-dik(dwarf antelope); the vehicle hit a rock and was hurled Into the air, crashing down into a dry river bed. Leni went through the windscreen and she was severely injured--her head wound was sewn up with a darning needie--and she was not expected to live. With her incredible resilience she recovered. A fleeting glimpse of Masai warriors carrying spears and wearing tribal costume inspired a fascination which led eventually to her photographic work. Ernest Hemingway described the Masai as "the tallest,best-grown, most splendid people that I had ever seen in Africa."……