Giraffes doing the splits to get a drink of water from the watering hole at the Zimanga Private Game Reserve in South Africa on March 31, 2022. (Photo by Hendri Venter/Animal News Agency)
Mali supporters cheer ahead of the Group F Africa Cup of Nations (CAN) 2021 football match between Mali and Mauritania at Stade de Japoma in Douala on January 20, 2022. (Photo by Charly Triballeau/AFP Photo)
The images in Jessica Hilltout‘s Amen tell a gripping story of the joy soccer provides for Africa’s less fortunate. Inspired by her father, Hilltout set off to photograph soccer in Africa in all its shapes and sizes, coming to the conclusion that “the beautiful game exists in its purest form in what I saw — people playing for the joy of playing.”
A group of San Bushmen from the Khomani San community practice their hunter-gatherer craft in the Southern Kalahari desert on October 15, 2009 in the Kalahari, South Africa. One of the largest studies of African genetics by an international team from the University of Pennsylvania, published in April 2009, revealed that the San of Southern Africa are the most genetically diverse on earth, and that the San homeland could be the spot where modern humanity began. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
A meerkat stands guard as her pups cuddle at Mountain Zebra National Park, South Africa early November 2025. (Photo by Nadine Leonard/Two Point O Media)
A girl laughs while unloading her boat of produce at a market in Ganvie on January 6, 2012 in Cotonou, Benin. Often called the Venice of Africa, Ganvie is a stilted fishing village on Lake Nokoue, near Cotonou in Benin, the largest such village in Africa, and home to approximately 20,000 residents. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Nicole Scherzinger at the “The X Factor” TV show, Series 14, Episode 15, Judges' Houses in Sun City, South Africa on October 21, 2017. (Photo by Dymond/Thames/Syco/Rex Features/Shutterstock)
A person poses on the track during a fashion competition at the Durban July horse racing event in Durban, South Africa, July 2, 2016. (Photo by Rogan Ward/Reuters)