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Hein Waschefort, on being announced overall winner of the 2019 Africa Photo Awards with his dreamscape, “Where the Moon and Tusks Collide”, explained: “Since I can remember I perceived everything around me in pictures – people, places, events, dimensions, perspectives – and I have always had the urge to translate, record and communicate what I see in visual form. So, I started drawing, painting and sculpting and ended up studying fine arts at university. Then I discovered a camera, film and a darkroom and found a new exciting medium for my art: Photography. For me as a visual artist, the digital era provides endless opportunities to create images across multiple platforms and disciplines, combining photography with digital art, graphics and presentations.” Hein masterfully combines and manipulates his compositions with expert use of light, shadow, texture, colour, form, proportion, space, rhythm to create an artistic vision. He constantly studies art history and artists to test his values and perspectives in a never-ending quest to synthesize and develop new concepts and techniques. He sees opportunities for images all around him and uses each opportunity to push his creativity further. “I will never use third party images – it will be an insult to my creativity, therefore each image I use to create a collective is my own work and I believe in starting off with technically sound images.” His diverse portfolio consists of avant-garde, digital art, abstract, conceptual, dreamscapes, landscapes, altered reality, fine art photography, portraiture, street photography and nature. “Expressing myself through visual art is not a “job”, it is my passion and I see my life work as instilling creativity and an incandescent passion for visual arts into my audience, aspiring visual artists, and photographers.” Hein posed the question: “A strange world I am living in - Where do I come from? Who am I? Where am I going?” as the title of one of his latest thought-provoking works after being diagnosed with advanced esophageal adenocarcinoma in Sep 2020. This partly explains his philosophy that we get our ideas from the world around us and reflects profound influences from his long career as a photographer and artist starting off as a conscripted trained reconnaissance soldier cum war photographer during the Border War armed with a Mamiya Press camera.