Composing The Dunes Part 4 - Quiver Trees and Canyons (delayed workshop report)

Crossing the desert one last time we drove between Luderitz and the Fish River Canyon, before snaking our way back north-eastwards to the incredible scenery of the Quiver Tree forests north of Keetmanshoop. Crossing the desert was itself an experience. The tarred B4 highway shoots straight as an arrow after the permanent dunes around Kolmanskop towards the West. Distances are truly vast, particularly when you get to the flat landscape of the Khoichab depression that looks more like it should be found on Mars rather than on earth. The searing heat throws up shimmering mirages that double the sense of vastness.

Read more at Composing The Dunes - Part 4: Quiver Trees and Canyons... 

Composing The Dunes Part 3 - Picturing Ruins (delayed workshop report)

Traveling south from Sesriem along the D707 is an incredible experience. The vastness of Namibia’s desert landscape is only made more intense by its near emptiness. Our three vehicles moved rapidly along the dirt road that flanks the eastern edge of the Namib-Naukluft National Park, but still, distances seemed to crawl by. That is one of the complications of travelling in Namibia. The distances between locations are enormous. The workshop we are leading takes in four of the most iconic landscape destinations in Africa, but, they each require almost a full day’s traveling to get between.

Read more at Composing The Dunes - Part 3: Picturing Ruins...

Composing the Dunes Part 2 - Ghosts of Trees (delayed workshop report)

The thing that strikes people most strongly when they first encounter the desert is the absolute vastness. It just stretches on forever. The horizon is a shimmering mirage that intensifies the sensation of endlessness. Add a cloudless blue sky and desiccating oven-like heat and you cannot help but be overwhelmed by the waves and waves of red sand marching into the distance. This is the Namib desert. Eerily beautiful and brutally harsh in the same moment.

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Composing the Dunes - Part 1: Spitzkoppe (delayed workshop report)

In what seems like the blink of an eye the Composing the Dunes workshop has suddenly arrived. I'm writing this overlooking the vast expanse of the grassy plains to the east of the Namib Desert on a rest morning that is sorely needed by our weary group of photographers. Although we have only taken in one of the selected landscape venues of the photography workshop, one of our photographers admitted that it seems unlikely that what we have already seen could possibly be improved upon. Yet, every inch of Namibia is like that. The country is a landscape photographer's dream.

Read more at Composing The Dunes - Part 1: Spitzkoppe...