Elewana Afrika-Mott Visuals goes to Tanzania

A while back I received a call about doing some work in Tanzania for a luxury safari company. I had been doing commercial work for a few years but it always took a backseat to my documentary work.  In April of 2009 I decided to put more focus into my commercial photography and I launched Mott Visuals, , a commercial photography and web video company.

I had been talking about getting my commercial work organized and branded behind the scenes with a good friend of mine in Singapore, Camille Faylona. Camille took on the role of producer for our video content and Singapore representative.

The assignment was to shoot 5 locations for a luxury lodge and safari company in Tanzania called Elewana Afrika. They are a unique company catering towards high-end safaris. Each of their locations offers a unique experience with impeccable service. Rooms cost about around $1,000 a night and they’ve had such high profile guests like George W. Bush, Will Smith, and most recently Justin Mott.

I met with their founder a few days into the shoot, a young successful businessman named Karim. He has a great vision for his Elewana line of lodges and we sat over drinks as he explained that to me. The face to face meeting really gave me a great idea of his vision and how to blend it with my style. He was demanding of me as well he should be, their brochures and website are the front line of their marketing campaign.

He had a great team assembled to work with and I couldn’t have asked for better people. I mean his main management staff did the styling, logistics, and just about everything else you could imagine. They had me up in trees, on a table balanced on top of an old petrol truck, out on safari drives in the middle of the night.

The first few days started off quite stressful, but once we were all on the same page things ran smoothly. I am so thankful to have met the team at Elewana Afrika all the way from their founder Karim, to their management team(damn South Africans teamed up on the poor American making fun of my accent), to the accommodating staff at each lodge.

I am truly proud of the work we produced and we’ve even talked about doing more work in Tanzania in the future together as Elewana expands.

Here are some samples of the work that I couldn’t have done without Dalene, Mike, Glenn. Edward, and Gretchen: