About Nana Woodley
Nana was born in 1970 in Germany and moved to Kenya at the age of six years. Her father was posted to Nairobi by the German Television, first channel, as their overall Africa Correspondent. Schooling took place at the German School in Nairobi. The following 5 years entailed a life very different from the one she had been used to until then. Extensive travels throughout Kenya and Tanzania. It was a childhood being spent entirely outdoors with a variety of pets and wild animals, and the freedom to explore Nature.
In 1980, Nana moved back to Germany with her parents, going to grammar school in Bonn. The summer holidays of each year were spent back in Kenya, always on travels through the country.
Six years later, in 1986, her parents moved back to Kenya again, and Nana attended the German School in Nairobi once again.
In 1988 she visited Ghana for a month and spent her time there exploring the country.
The next year, 1989, Nana completed her A-Levels and spent the next four months with an expedition through Tanzania, visiting all the places off the beaten track and travels to the United States of America for 10 weeks (just in time to experience the 1989 earth quake in San Francisco!).
Back in Kenya, Nana produced a film for a German kid’s programme about Daphne Sheldrick and her elephant orphans, including the interviews, research and editing.
At the end of 1989, she engaged in a practical course for half a year with the internationally renowned photographers Mohammed Amin and Duncan Willetts of the photo- and film agency “Camerapix” in Nairobi, concentrating on still photography and darkroom work.
In 1990, Nana moved back to Germany on her own to start college, doing a four-year course in photography. The course covered studio photography, photojournalism, advertising, filming, as well as film and print process. Concentrating on photojournalism, she mostly chose controversial politicians and other people of public interest for her assignments, as well as covering pressing issues in Kenya, such as the up-coming refugee camps through out the country. By working at trade fairs during short holidays, she managed to fly back to Kenya at least once a year, therewith staying in close touch with developments and the life in East Africa.
In 1991, Nana got the photography assignment for the Marco Polo travel guide covering Kenya.
During the long summer break in 1992, she went on a five week expedition from Kenya to Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, Zambia, Malawi and back through Tanzania to Kenya.
1993 she went to South Africa, touring the entire country for five weeks.
Mid of 1994, Nana went to Tanzania photographing for her final assignment for her studies, covering the life of a small hunters & gatherers tribe in Tanzania – the Hadzabe. Nana spent time over a period of three months with the Hadzabe.
In 1995, Nana completed her studies with an academic degree of “Qualified Designer in Photography”.
Declining an offer for employment as the PR Photographer for the East-German Politician, Gregor Gysi, she went back to Kenya in 1995.
Having settled again in Nairobi, she did further practical training with German TV on camera, sound engineering and research for three months.
The following year, she worked as a free-lance photographer on local advertising assignments, as well as assignments for German magazines and newspapers, portraying the Kenyan politician and founder of the Greenbelt Movement Waangari Maathai, and the Ugandan President Museveni. Nana also took up working as a freelance safari guide with international tourists.
In 1996, Nana was part-time employed as the in-house photographer with the Design House “Prepress Productions” in Nairobi, photographing calendars, annual reports, brochures and studio still-lives for various local and international organisations, as well as Restaurants, Night Clubs and Safari Camps.
During that same year, she joined the equipment supply convoy with the British Army and Kenya Wildlife Services, going from Nairobi to Garissa, on the Somali border, to set up and prepare the translocation camp for the following capture and translocation of the endangered Hunter’s Hartebeest (Hirola). Due to her work in Nairobi, she could only pay the camp a flying visit during the actual translocation.
In October 1996, she joined Danny on his walking expedition from Mt. Kilimanjaro down to Malindi, taking supplies in and out of the various camps along the 800 km-long march.
At the end of 1996, Nana went to Zimbabwe for 3 weeks, discovering yet another African country.
The next year, she moved to Tsavo East National Park, based in Voi Headquarters, to join her fiancé, Daniel Woodley, but still kept up her part-time work with Prepress in Nairobi, travelling back and forth. During 1997, she also became more actively involved with wildlife issues by photographing and recording on a voluntary basis various happenings such as the livestock incursions within the Amboseli National Park. She also regularly photographed the Sheldrick elephant orphans that are being released from Tsavo East headquarters in Voi back into the wild, recording their development and growth for the Sheldrick Trust. Aerial photos to record river pollution and encroachment on the Tsavo East boundary by squatters.
Beginning of 1998, Nana resigned from her job with Prepress, joined the international Photo Agency “LAIF”, based in Cologne/Germany and moved to Voi permanently. She still had freelance photography assignments through advertising agencies and other clients in Nairobi, but was now based in Tsavo. Later that year, she raised an orphaned female lion cub, which had lost her mother in one of the bush fires following “El Nino”. Declining offers from European zoos and other private people, the lion cub was then handed over to Tony Fitzjohn (George Adamson’s assistant for 16 years) in Tanzania to guarantee a free release and a life in freedom.
Apart from editing her coffee-table book on the Hadzabe, engaging in negotiations with various publishers and starting the work on a coffee-table book on Tsavo East, she has become more and more involved with wildlife and the conservation of its habitat.
January 1999, Nana helped voluntarily with the Tsavo Elephant count doing groundwork. Later that year, she underwent and passed her bronze level exam with the Kenya Professional Safari Guide Association and still does tour guiding for international clients.
With her husband’s posting to the Northern Area of Tsavo East in 1999, she has been actively involved in the organising, planning and setting-up of the camp, where she lived for almost 2 years, the construction of the new Headquarters at Ithumba and the general developing of the park.
Since then she has published an article in July 2000 on snaring in the “Swara” magazine of the East African Wildlife Society, and another article on the Northern Area in the same magazine in August 2001. Recording illegal activities, such as logging and meat poaching, with photographic evidence, helping with organisational and paper work, fund raising, raising and releasing orphaned or injured animals, her interest in learning more about the flora and fauna, wildlife and park management issues, is constantly growing.
All in all, Nana has a wide knowledge of African countries and their individual politics and wildlife management policies. She is trained to record developments in the form of photographic reports and has a deep interest, understanding and feeling for the conservation of wildlife and its habitat. She enjoys the bush and does not mind the remoteness and loneliness that comes with this life style.