South African photographer Shem Compion remembers precisely when his love affair with the Great Rift Valley began.
In 2002, in his twenties and in search of adventure, Compion saved what he could, sold what he didn’t need and bought a Land Rover. Together with a friend he hit the road and headed north. They wouldn’t return home for seven months.
Their journey was Compion’s first exposure to the Rift — also known as the East African Rift System — which carves its way 4,000 miles from Botswana and Mozambique in the south to Djibouti and the Red Sea in the north, and up into Jordan. Formed by tectonic plates slowly tearing apart, its valleys wend through 11 countries, growing inch by inch, until one day, many millions of years from now, the sea will begin to flood the land; a stark and beautiful reminder of the impermanence of all things.
On his road trip, Compion ventured to Nakuru, Kenya, where the land drops away and Lake Nakuru stretches out with enormous drifts of pink flamingos, framed by mountains in the distance. “That was quite a seminal moment,” he reflected. “It all came together for me right there.”
Compion, who trained in conservation and wildlife management, has operated safaris along the Rift while photographing its landscapes, wildlife and peoples for over 20 years. His portfolio has now been compiled into his seventh book and first art book, “The Rift: Scar of Africa,” a grand project that seeks to capture its awe and abundance.
The book unfolds across five chapters, exploring the geological origins of the Rift, hominid evolution, its human inhabitants today, biodiversity, and the impact of the Anthropocene — the time period human activity has had a significant impact on the planet.
Compion describes the book as “part celebration, part bringing together science and conservation.” He solicited a range of specialists to speak to his images, including volcanologist David Pyle and anthropologist Veronica Waweru, along with notable figures such as artist Ngwatilo Mawiyoo and Hailemariam Desalegn, former prime minister of Ethiopia.
That said, many of the photographs speak for themselves — and the intrepid photographer.
For the book’s opening chapter, Compion wanted to capture the lava pool of Tanzanian volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai at night. His guide, he said, “took some convincing” to let them climb through the day in 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) heat to get there. Then, 10 minutes after reaching the summit, a storm came in.
“We had a tiny pup tent where the four of us slept, sandwiched in like sardines,” Compion recalled. “We lay as the rain battered the tent all night. We woke up in the morning, the storm was still going, and we descended with our tails between our legs. On that occasion, we got no photographs at all.”
The failure prompted him to visit volcano Erta Ale in the Danakil Depression, Ethiopia. “They call (the area) the driest and hottest place on the planet,” he said. “I got there and it rained.”
The Afar, a nomadic people living in the area, known for mining its salt flats, can endure heat, but Compion said the jump in humidity caused even the Afar to pass out. The photographer, armed with sachets of rehydration salts, was the closest thing to medical help for miles.
Compion has sought out many peoples and tribes living along the Rift, developing connections with communities as he’s visited as a safari guide or simply a photographer.
The Omo Valley in Ethiopia is among the most diverse locations, home to the Bodi, Suri, Karo, Kwegu tribes and more.
“In those areas the tourism is unregulated,” he said, “and so normally with unregulated tourism practices you get bad behavior.”
“I wanted to avoid that and go right deep into the Omo,” Compion added. “We go there with small groups, so we can keep control over the relationship that we have with the tribespeople we are living with. We take that responsibility quite seriously, because we want a beautiful quid pro quo between everyone.”
Among the people that have affected him the most is the Suri (part of the Surma people), famous for their lip discs and brass bracelets.
Compion learned schoolchildren were being taught in Amharic, the common language in Ethiopia, instead of their native tongue, and it was affecting their education, he said. So the photographer teamed up with language development nonprofit SIL Ethiopia to raise funds to train teachers to teach in Suri — a program already helping 500 students each year.
“It’s a small project in the greater scheme of things, but it helps us build incredible relationships,” said Compion. “I’m going to be down there three times in 2026 … I can’t wait, because these (people) are now my friends.”
He has also befriended conservationists, including the late Marc Stalmans, whose incredible legacy is the restoration of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, from a decimated hunting ground during years of civil war to a thriving biodiversity hotspot.
Compion remembers Stalmans as a scientist with “laser-like” focus, whether caring for his students or an entire national park. “For 20 years he wore Gorongosa on his sleeve. His passion was only matched by his incredibly detailed knowledge of every subject in Gorongosa’s magnificent ecosystem.”
In the 4,000 square kilometer (1,544 square mile) park, herbivore numbers have exploded in recent years — particularly antelope — creating plentiful food for predators including lions, whose population has rebounded among Gorongosa’s woods and grasslands. It’s just one of the conservation wins Compion highlights along the Rift.
The Rift Valley is also becoming more urbanized. Nairobi and Addis Ababa sit directly on its borders, and are the most obvious symbols of modernization, but in Compion’s book, signs of development abound. Some are imposing but benign: a wind farm on a hillside, for example. Others, like a fisherman hauling in a net at dusk, point more subtly at problems raised by the Anthropocene.
Compion says alongside desertification, food security — especially the depletion of fish stocks in major lakes — is his biggest concern for the Rift. Though he’s seen enough to remain optimistic.
“All across Africa, there’s a groundswell of momentum (arguing) that local knowledge, Indigenous leadership, regenerative practices are the way forward,” he explained.
One example he witnessed is a small agricultural change near the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Terraced farmers are keeping more trees in place, using their root systems to prevent soil erosion, boosting their harvests — a change helping transition subsistence farmers into growers of cash crops, he said.
“You make leaps and bounds in peoples’ lives — and the environment — whilst using Indigenous and traditional methods of working,” Compion added.
The ongoing search for harmony between all the Rift’s occupants is a throughline of Compion’s book. He knows what is possible, but also what could be lost.
“I don’t necessarily see wildlife, landscape and humanity as separate realms, but more as a single interwoven system of cause and effect,” he explains. “There’s a great ecological reciprocity in the Rift Valley, because your human choices ripple through ecosystems, and those ecosystems in turn define human possibility.”
“Africa,” he added, “has been a great teacher in the sense of, where time and empathy are invested into solutions, then coexistence becomes very sustainable.”
Despite his latest book being such a long-term project, Compion knew it would be impossible to cover the valley in its entirety. He believes he still has much to discover about a place he describes as a beautiful “paradox;” a geological feature tearing the continent apart while binding so many people together. And he’s not done exploring yet.
“The more curious you are and the more you dig, the more you’ll find, and the more treasures will be unearthed,” he said.
