The Namib Desert at Sossusvlei – Land of the Red Dunes

Towards the end of our trip we made our way to the place I was most looking forward to see – Sossusvlei and ultimately Deadvlei.  This is the area of the Namib desert that is world famous for it’s towering red dunes and dead trees.  We stayed in a campground right outside of the park, and were first in line pre-dawn to make sure we didn’t miss the gorgeous sunrise.

We arrived at an area called Dune 45, which is the famous dune that they have open to the public for those willing to try the long and sliding trek to the top.  We started the climb prior to the sun rising; below is a picture of Adriana in front of me on the walk up the dune.  The next photo is the view from the top of the dune prior to the sun crossing the horizon.  To get a sense of scale you can see in the distance another early riser with his equipment out to capture the scene as well.

And then the sun started to rise. I captured this photo right when it was breaking the horizon. I used a circular polarising filter on my lens that allowed the sun to twinkle a bit without being fully blown out.

I always find times like these to be almost nerve-wracking. First of all it’s an incredibly beautiful moment.  Even though the sun rises every single day, each occurrence is awe-inspiring.  And trying to capture that on camera when you’re at an equally awe-inspiring location can be difficult.  I know wedding photographers fret over not getting that perfect picture for the bride – well I worry about not getting an image that really captures my feeling of the moment.  More on that in a bit….

In this picture of Adriana you can start to see the light hitting the dunes in the background (and you can see the sunlight isn’t on her face yet).  I know that photographers (myself included in the coming generalization) often talk about light. How important it is, how it changes the look of photos, how critical time of day is because of the angle of sunlight, etc.  Well if there was ever a place in my life that seemed to change color every 30 seconds, this was it.  If the sun went behind a cloud, the color changed.  If it popped out and only shone on the tips of the dunes, then the tips of the dunes were dramatically different in color to the rest of the sand.  It was just incredible to see how much the landscape changed based on where I was looking and what the sun was doing at that precise second.  The two photos below were taken exactly 5 minutes apart according to the EXIF data and you can see the difference in color.

Taken at 5:57 am

Taken at 6:02 am

You can also see the cloud cover is changing.  It was unfortunate (as you’ll see in my next post on Deadvlei) that we had cloudy skies for the rest of our morning with only sporadic bits of blue peeking through.  That being said, it did give a different view of the desert that few people get to see.

Eventually it was time to start heading down and start our hike, but not before I took a picture of the two of us, and Adriana took a quick snap of me at the top of the dune.  And now I go back to my earlier comment about capturing the moment.  These pictures are my favorite of the bunch – it was my birthday and the entire trip to Namibia was a gift from Adriana, and I really feel that this picture of the two of us at the top of a red sand dune in Sossusvlei is what I’ll remember the most.

Just because I’ll remember them most doesn’t mean I stopped taking pictures!  Far from it!  On the walk down the sun was getting brighter, the clouds were moving in and out of the frame and I got some pictures I’m pretty pleased with.  Both of the below pics were taken on the walk down, one looking up and backwards, the other looking down to the parking lot.

In the picture above I introduced a bit of “glow” from OnOne Software.  I think it added an ethereal effect and I especially like what it did to the sun.  I’m sure some won’t like it but it adds a bit of variety to the photos.

The pictures below are some others I took on the way down; I slid the aperture wide open to create a small window of focus in the middle of the “small dunes” that are created in the sand.

I also took this picture of Adriana on the way down.  This is a great shot proving yet again how much the light changes the color.  This was taken a little bit later after the sun had risen higher in the sky.

Once we arrived at the bottom (and after eating a bit of a surprise b-day cake!) I took a few more photos.  I was trying to capture the grandiose size of the dunes in the pictures below, so it was critical to make sure there was something to compare them to (hence the trees or shrubs).  I wish I had another crack at these; I’ve seen postcards and other travel photos of the dunes that are absolutely incredible in showing their size.

And finally a few pictures from the bottom.  This is the sign for Dune 45 (the one pictured above and the one that we climbed).  You also see another picture of the sign with the parking lot in the background and the resolute hikers making their way to the top.

The last set of photos are of our hike.  After climbing Dune 45, we took a 5 km hike into the desert to arrive at Deadvlei.  The hike was great, but a bit frustrating.  Because of the cloud cover I didn’t get the contrast of the bright blue sky with the red dunes.  But also because of the cloud cover, the hike itself was very enjoyable with no sun beating down on us!  Anyway here are the last few pics from our hike to Deadvlei.  The last picture is of the actual clay pan with the dead acacia trees.  Those pictures will be in my next post on Namibia, so you’ll have to wait!

Finally, if you’re interested in getting a closer look at any of these pictures please click on it and you’ll get a nice big image.  If you’re interested in owning one of these photos (without a watermark), please click on the thumbnail below or check out my portfolio on SmugMug.  And as always, thanks for reading!

The Skeleton Coast of Namibia

Back in June of this year, Adriana and I spent over a week cruising around Namibia.  One of the stops on our journey was the town of Swakopmund, where we spent two days to enjoy the scenery, eat at some nice restaurants, and of course taking pictures! Swakopmund is on the western coast of the country, part of what is known as the Skeleton Coast.

The area is named the Skeleton Coast due to the large number of shipwrecks in the region.  The coast is apparently very difficult to navigate, and when a ship does wreck it certainly doesn’t last very long.  Here’s a picture of one of the boats that we saw, an old fishing vessel that apparently wrecked in the 70’s.

But the Skeleton Coast is interesting for another reason; the Namib desert extends straight to the Atlantic in this area of Africa.  This creates some beautiful vistas and images, but is a living nightmare for sailors unfortunate enough to get stranded here.  Imagine swimming for the coast, overjoyed to be out of the water only to realize you now have desert stretching in front of you for over 100 miles!  Not a situation I’d want to be in….and we found the remnants of this guy amidst the sand (this is not a joke).

One afternoon, Adriana and I hired a jeep tour that took us further south past Walvis Bay to an area called Sandwich Harbour.  We basically went four wheel driving across the dunes, taking pictures of the incredibly beautiful formations that the sand makes and admiring how the ocean meets the desert.   On our way out to the area we passed a seal, the only one we saw on the whole trip.  I was only able to snap this one picture before he waddled away to the ocean.

Eventually we got closer to the sand dunes and the beauty was just incredible.  I hope the photos do a good job of capturing what it was like to glide across the sand, and have this incredible sense of timelessness as you see the wind constantly working and molding the sand into these flowing shapes.

Needless to say the area is barren; anytime you can get something other than sand in the frame it tends to give a nice sense of scale.  I took the picture below of this sign that sort of made me chuckle – “No Entry” – which begs the question who would want to enter a desert like this and run the risk of walking past this sign?

An even better sense of scale is provided by this picture of the 4×4 that accompanied us on the trip.  You can really get a sense of how small these vehicles are compared to the shifting sands of the dunes.

I also included a few pictures of … you guessed it … us!  It was pretty windy while we were there, but aside from some crazy looking hair it didn’t stop us from getting some good pictures.  Here’s the two of us together posing for the camera and then a lovely picture of Adriana with her out of control hair!

The other thing that I spent some time focusing on was the shadows.  As it got later in the day the shadows became very pronounced.  Our shadows certainly became longer, but it also worked wonders in changing the look and colors of the dunes themselves.  I tried to capture this in the images below.  

In the following two pictures I tried to take a picture of the wind; you can vaguely make out the sand blowing in the first picture, but you can definitely see the intimate shapes that the wind has created in these ridges.

The picture below I kept at an angle.  Usually I’m pretty meticulous in making sure that my horizon is straight, but in this one I liked the leading line that the coastline made going off into the picture so I decided to keep it at the harsh angle in which it was taken.

A black and white version of the sand draws out the shadows in a way only B&W can do.

Before we went on our jeep journey across the sand I was sweating bullets about whether or not I should change lenses in the desert.  This was a brand new camera and every book in the world says that sand and sea air are the two worst things to expose your camera to.  But you know what?  I changed lenses anyway and I don’t regret it one bit.  To be clear, I was very careful about it – I only changed lenses while I was in the car with the windows closed and my bag ready to accept the lens I was taking off.  I know people have different opinions on this but mine is relatively strong.  If I spend all this money on a good camera and good lenses, only to be too afraid to use them when I’m out taking pictures, then what’s the point?  This is also why I tend to bring my DSLR with me rather than carrying a smaller portable camera.

Hope you enjoyed these pictures; below I have a few of them that I think are worth hanging on a wall.  If you agree with me, feel free to click on the thumbnail which will take you to my portfolio and you can print a copy for yourself!

Until next time, hope you take some great pictures!

The Colours of Copenhagen

Many years ago, before Adriana and I were married, we went to Denmark.  In February.  And it was cold.  I really remember the trip because it was one of my first trips with my “new” DSLR, a Canon EOS Rebel Xsi or something like that, the equivalent of a Canon 300D.  We wandered around the city and I swear the population was reduced to about 11 people; there just weren’t many people around due to the cold weather.

Well this time we went again, to enjoy the city in the summer.  I think Scandinavian countries are just awesome, particularly in summer.  There’s something about the culture and the population that really makes me want to take advantage of the extended northern sunshine.

But enough about the sunshine, let’s talk pictures!  As usual we stayed in a cool local place right in the center of town.  We were able to walk to an area of the city called Nyhavn Canal.  This is a great area with beautiful old buildings from the 17th and 18th century.  We ate dinner here one night and spent a fair amount of time taking photos (as does everyone else!)  The light was perfect and we were able to get some pretty good shots.  I’ll be honest – we spent a lot of time here and you’re going to see a helluva lot of pictures of Nyhavn Canal!

So let’s start with the evening photos.  The sky was cloudy which can create a nice backdrop; I like the atmosphere in these photos.

These happen to be 5 shot HDR photos.  The picture above has a nice leading line along the harbor that draws the eye into the frame.

I also snapped a picture of my beautiful wife – is that a baby bump I see there?

On this trip I didn’t bring a tripod so wasn’t able to take any high quality night photos. I did however take a night picture just to flex the ISO muscle on my camera.  It came out okay but this has had some noise reduction done using Dfine2.  But honestly the colours here don’t come out well so I’m not too impressed with that pic.

I also took some shots from “head on” – i.e. the other side of the canal (there’s only one side that has the colourful buildings).  So the picture below is the one I took in the evening, the one under that is the one I took the following morning.  I’m curious to see which one people like more.  I love the color pop and I admit I’m guilty of possibly overcooking these but honestly the colours were just so incredible while we were there and I wanted to re-create that memory.

I think I like the one taken in the morning more, but not quite sure.  I edited the “sunny” photo in Photoshop and used levels on the water to bring out the reflections a bit more, I liked the way the colours melded together as if in a painting.

The morning sun was really great, and we took full advantage walking around the docks to get shots of the buildings from all angles.  And there were plenty of people around to make sure we got some decent pics of the two of us without a tripod.  I used my small 270 flash (trying to get used to carrying less weight while doing city breaks) and it did a nice job of providing the required fill light.

I also took a few more pictures getting the whole view down the long canal.  In the first one I processed it a little bit differently than normal and essentially took clarity out of the photo (usually I add a little bit in).  This creates a sort of glowing look; not sure if it works but wanted to keep it interesting.

The image below is the one you would see when you first walk to the canal.  This is the beginning of the entire group of buildings.

Finally I’ll close with this shot; this is at the other end of the canal, the yellow building there on the right is essentially the last building in the line.

I’ll stop there for now – I think that’s more pictures of colourful buildings than most people can deal with!  We also walked around other parts of the city and spent some time in Tivoli Gardens so in the coming days I’ll put a few more photos up on another post.

Now of course it’s time for me to hawk my goods; if you see any photos you like please check out my SmugMug portfolio or click on one of the photos below for a high quality print.