Category: Namibia

2010 – 2019 My Favourite Images

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2010-2019 My Favourite Images from the Decade

 

The decade for starting a photography business, making new friends and lots of travel.  I hope you’ll enjoy my little journey down memory lane, these are some of my favourites.  Some you will have seen, others possibly not.  I’ve tried to limit the images to 2 per year but sometimes that was a little too hard.  

I look back and see a lot of variety but I still don’t know what my style is, perhaps someone can help me with that??

2010 – The Forth Bridge, Scotland.  Playing with light trails and long exposures at Blue Hour

 

2010 – Eilean Donan Castle, Lock Duich during Blue Hour

2011 – Experimenting with coloured lights and light painting.  Waroona

2011 – Playing with Macro in the backyard

2012 – One of the first times that I pre-visualised an image and then successfully made it happen.  Hampton Arms Bookstore, Greenough, Western Australia

2012 – The beginnings of my interest in minimalism. Maritime Museum, Fremantle.

2013 – A lone bicycle the morning after a Typhoon hit. Hoi An, Vietnam

2013 – Just a quick snap taken in the Ferguson Valley near Bunbury. These cows were so friendly, within a minute they were all coming up to me at the fence. So glad I got that first shot in.

2014 – Ah India, such an incredible place and rather heart stopping on the back of a motorcycle. Somewhere in Rajasthan.

Congelin Square

2014 – A minus 0 degree winters morning on a camping trip with the motorbike club. Congelin, Western Australia

 

2014 – More playing with coloured lights and light painting. Johnson Rd Yarloop

2015 – Female Scarlet Robin with breakfast, Barrabup Pool, Western Australia

2015 – A still autumn morning Kellands Ponds near Twizle, New Zealand

2015 – View of Coronet Peak on ‘fire’ in the late afternooon light. Taken from the balcony of our accommodation. Queenstown, New Zealand

2015 – Multiple exposures blended together.  Commercial Hotel, Meekatharra

2016 – KT The Cockatoo, this Female Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo photographed in my home studio

2016 – A sight I’ve always wanted to see. A multitude of African animals at a waterhole. Etosha National Park, Namibia

2016 – Love this sand dune.  Dune 44, Sossusvlei, Namibia

2017 – Sunset before the storm, Lake Ballard, Western Australia

2017 – A reminder of how small the world is these days. Brynja, reaching to her homeland, Iceland) and our Aussie mate Tom from down under. Eagle Rider Motorcycle Tour, Baja California Sur

2018 – My neighbour competing in the Best of the West Stockman Challenge, Packsaddle event. Dardanup

2018 – Fun with Silhouette at a Workshop in Fremantle

2018 – Spotted Pardalote in our front yard in Roelands. He/she stayed a couple of days, was possibly looking for a potential nesting site.

2019 – Our mascot ‘Jacks’, that we take along on our bike rides, meeting his own real life kangaroo which took a real shine to him. Donnelly River, Western Australia

2019 – Tidal Flats Tail. An aerial taken from a helicopter at low tide. Sandy Point Broome

2019 – Gimlet Trees. An in-camera Multiple exposure of Gimlet Trees against the bark of a Gimlet Tree. Near Norseman, Western Australia

Results Wagin Woolorama 2019

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Oh wow, where is this year going?? Half way through March already and this is only my first blog post for the year. Such neglect of my website.  I will have to try and rectify that over coming months. I’ve a few ideas for topics rolling around in my head but getting them out is another issue.  But for now I’d just like to talk about my results at the Wagin Woolorama Photography Competition last weekend and to give this Agricultural Show a plug as it is a really enjoyable day out.

Photo Comp

Firstly I’d like to thank the organisers of the Photography Competition that runs as part of Wagin Woolorama.  Glenys and her team do a great job every year putting together this competition. 

1st Place 'A Half of Anything' - Repeating Doorways 2019 Wagin Woolorama

1st Place ‘A Half of Anything’ – Repeating Doorways

 

This year, they introduced two new special categories, each with great prize money for the winner.  I was fortunate enough to take out the Portrait category with this image of the Namibian man starting a fire the tradition way, which most of you have possibly seen before.  If you’d like to see the winning landscape image by my friend Richard Hall please click here.

 

1st Place Portrait 2019 Wagin Woolorama

1st Place Portrait – Fire Starter

Here’s my other entries that did well this year.  

2nd Place Open Colour KT The Cockatoo 2019 Wagin Woolorama

2nd Place Open Colour – KT The Cockatoo

Highly Commended Mono - Moses Rock 2019 Wagin Woolorama

Highly Commended Mono – Moses Rock

Two Trees - Highly Commended Landscape 2019 Wagin Woolorama

Highly Commended Landscape – Two Trees

 

Evening Rodeo

After the day events have finished, like the shearing, sheep dog trials and judging of the animals, there’s the evening rodeo.  I love to watch the action and also the fashions.  The checked shirts, bright colours, fancy jeans and those hand made leather saddles.  Love it!

Wagin Woolorama Rodeo

The dust, setting sun and cowboy hats

Cowgirl Wagin Woolorama Rodeo

Bright coloured clothing

Wagin Woolorama Rodeo

Cowgirl clothing

Bronc riding at Wagin Woolorama Rodeo

Bronc riding

My Results – Focus Awards 2017

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Gold Award in Landscape Category.

This year for the first time I entered the Focus Awards.  I believe that they started out as Flickr and Facebook groups for landscape photographers and have just gone from strength to strength over the years supporting and nurturing a budding fellowship of photographers.  

This years awards were judged by three of Australia’s better know photographers Tony Hewitt, Christian Fletcher and Peter Eastway and do those guys deserve medals!  Picking out the winning images amongst all of the great photographs submitted, and I’m just talking about the top fifty in each category that I’ve seen.  If you have the time, please head on over to the results page and see for yourself.  The open section is open to amateurs and professionals while the other categories are open to just amateurs.

I entered two images in each of the Landscape, B&W, Seascapes, Urban Landscapes, Sunrise & Sunset categories.  I came away with one Gold award (3rd Place), 6 Silver awards and 3 Bronze awards, I’ll include images of the Gold and Silvers below.  One of the great things about this competition is that we receive feedback on our images.  They are just standardised comments but they give a good indication of the primary item that is lacking in taking your image to the next level.

While the comments on my images were quite varied for the majority of the images, one thing that was mentioned 3 times was my composition.  Something that I will definitely have to work on.  The majority of the other comments noted were in my development of the images.  Things like tonal control, midtone contrast, more contrast etc.  I’ll be reprocessing these images now, with these things in mind and hopefully will see an improvement.

Thanks to all those in the Focus Facebook group for your support and a big thank you to the Focus committee, the judges and the sponsors.

Dune 44 Namibia

Dune 44 Namibia

Misty Mountains

Kolmanskop

 

 

Click West 2017

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The Big Night

An annual event that I attend in Perth is the WAPF’s Canon Click West.  A great competition for members of West Australian camera clubs with fantastic prizes.  This year, for the 2nd year in a row I was fortunate enough to have an image selected as a finalist in the Natural Portraiture category.  My “Fire Starter” image was taken on my trip to Namibia last year and is a favourite of mine.

Here’s a link to the finalists in all categories Canon Click West.  Much to my surprise this year, I also made it into the top 10 for the portfolio prize.  Although I only had one entry make the top 10, my other three images obviously rated high enough in their categories to get me through.  This was the one to win, a Kimberley cruise with Kimberley Expeditions, congratulations to Marie Kingsley for taking out this award.

Natural Portraiture

Natural Light Portraiture

Landscape

Australasian Landscape

Fungi

Macro/close Up

Maritime

Maritime

 

Weekend Events

Included for the first time this year was a weekend of events including photo walks and workshops.  They covered topics like printing, Eizo monitors, making photo books, speed lights and the list goes on.

I stayed in Perth overnight and just attended the Melville Camera Club hosted walk around the Heathcote Cultural Precinct for sunrise on the Saturday morning.  We didn’t have the spectacular colour that we’d had earlier in the week but it was still nice to be out.

Sunrise on the river

 

 

Desert Elephants Damaraland

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Desert Elephants

The Desert Elephants Damaraland were amazing to see.  They are African Bush Elephants that have adapted to survive in the desert, in this case in Namibia.  They are often seen with short damaged tusks as a result of mineral deficient soil and the need to dig up sand and rocks in search for food and water.  I hope you like elephants as this post it I will be sharing my elephant images with you.  The elephants in these photos are feeding on the Camelthorn Acacia (Acacia erioloba) which is a very common tree in these parts and also extremely thorny.  Thorns are between 3-5cm long.

Elephants are very destructive to the environment and will often push over large trees just to get to the new shoots.  As we discovered this also helps the smaller animals that don’t have the same reach so it’s not all bad I guess.

Many elephants in Africa live within reserves but the elephants in the Namib are free to roam and often travel distances up to 60km per day between their favourite feeding grounds and water holes during the dry season.  They can survive without eating as much as other elephants in food-abundant parts of Africa.  They can go without drinking water for up to three days if they need to.  

 

Desert Elephants Damaraland

Camel Thorn Tree

Desert Elephants Damaraland

Protective custody

Desert Elephants Damaraland

Mother and calf

Desert Elephants Damaraland

breakfast

Desert Elephants Damaraland

The destruction

Back to the Coast

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Back to the Coast

After visiting the sand dunes of Sossusvlei we headed back to the coast and the town of Swakopmund.  This is where the dunes meet the sea at Sandwich Harbour.  The flight in was spectacular as we took the scenic route up the coast and flew over two shipwrecks in the sand dunes and the incredible shapes and patterns of the dunes and ocean (more pics to follow another day).  I went for a walk around town when we first arrived in Swakopmund, bought some bangles from some tribal women that had a little stall set up, walked around the ornate and colourful buildings of German influence.  Our DMC (our Namibian Travel Agent) took our tour group out to dinner to a really popular seafood restaurant called The Tug.  Fabulous food, decor, architecture (just like a tugboat) and service.

4 Wheel Driving

The next morning a few of us went on a 4WD tour to Sandwich Harbour.  We stopped at the salt lakes then drove through the dunes for a while before heading along the beach to our destination.  On the way we stopped by a helicopter that had parked up on the beach.  They were setting up sets for the filming of Transformers 5. We also saw lots of baby seals who had been abandoned by their mothers as they were weak.  Evidently this is a very common occurrence, but as we noticed when we flew in the day before, the number of seals along this part of the coast is massive, so I guess the percentage that are abandoned is relatively small.  We saw lots of birdlife including two types of Flamingos and some migratory waders we see during the summer at home.

 

Black-backed Jackel Walvis Bay

Black-backed Jackal

baby seal Walvis Bay

Baby Seal

Pelican Egret Walvis Bay

Great White Pelican and Little Egret

day-12-swakopmund-to-damaraland-8427

Greater Flamingo

Back to the Coast Salt Lake Walvis Bay

Salt Lake

Back to the Coast Salt Lake Walvis Bay

Salt Lake

The Wonderful Namibian Birds

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Namibian Birds – Well how do I start.

Those of you who know me well know that I love to photograph birds.  I didn’t realise that birding would play such an important part in my trip to Namibia, but I was wrong coming home with more than just a handful of species.

There are about 600 birds species native to Namibia.  I think I managed to capture about 10% of these.  Most are just record shots but others I’m very happy with.  You could easily make birding your primary reason for a trip to this Namibia.

I should mention that 90% of these images were taken with a full frame camera and a 70-200mm f2.8 lens with a 1.4x converter attached.  I was resting my camera on the vehicle for most of the photos.  Because I can’t hold the camera steady with much over a 200mm focal length I really need to use a tripod when ever I can.

Bird

Great White Pelican

day-13-damaraland-9049

Ostrich

 

Aka Flying Banana

Yellow-billed Hornbill Aka Flying Banana

Namibian Birds

Kori Bustard

Namibian Birds

Greater Flamingo

 

Sossusvlei – Valley of Dunes

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Sossusvlei – Valley of Dunes

Dunes

Sossusvlei would have to be one of the highlights of this trip for me due to the amazing sand dunes (another was Etosha).   The Namib-Naukluft National Park covers an area of nearly 50,000 square kms.  It is one of the largest nature reserves on our planet.  Sossusvlei is located in its southern reaches and is where mountainous sand dunes cloak the Namib Desert.  These are known as star dunes because they are formed by equally strong winds from different directions.   The Sossusvlei dunes are considered to be the world’s highest.

Sossus Dune Lodge

We spent three nights at the Sossus Dune Loge in huts spread out around the base of a mountain, joined by a boardwalk with quite a long walk to reach our rooms.  Our first day here in 46 degree heat wasn’t the most comfortable.  Our rooms although nicely appointed didn’t have air-conditioning,

 Thankfully the next couple of days the temperature dropped to mid to high 30s.  As well as trips to the dunes, we had options of helicopter flights and ballooning.  I did both and will bring you pics in a future post.

Sossusvlei - Valley of Dunes

Dune 44

Sossusvlei - Valley of Dunes

Sossusvlei - Valley of Dunes

Mrs & Mr Ostrich at sunset

Sossus Dune Lodge

Aerial view of our accommodation – Sossus Dune Lodge

Luderitz & Ghost Town Kolmanskop

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Luderitz

After a short flight we landed at our next stop, the town of Luderitz located on the coast.  Surrounded by sand dunes and nine kilometres inland from Luderitz is the airport.  I still remember our Cessna 210 landing and seeing the rest of our tour group (from the “caravan”) walking into the terminal.  The mass of sand that was being blown around in the high winds meant that I could only see just their upper torso as their legs were lost.

Our lovely hotel (Ludertiz Nest Hotel) was situated right on the waters edge just out of town.  We spent two nights here which meant we were able to make three visits to Kolmanskop.

Ghost Town Kolmanskop

Kolmanskop is amazing.  The Ghost Town of Kolmanskop is now an abandoned diamond mining town which has been overrun by the sands of the Namib Desert.  In its heyday the town was home to over 300 German prospectors and their children.  Along with about 800 Ovambo labourers which had come from the North.  There were grand residences for the mine manager and other key personnel.  A state of the art hospital, bowling alley, casino, baker, ice factory, slaughterhouse, theatre, clubhouse, and library etc.

The discovery of the first diamond in 1908 brought an influx of fortune seekers to the area.   So began the construction of the buildings between 1908 – 1910, the town peaking during the late 1920s.  Due to dwindling diamond deposits and richer finds to the south, the processing plant was shut down in 1936.  The offices were moved south and the hospital was closed down a few years later, with the the last resident departing the town in 1956.

 

Kolmanskop

Kolmanskop

Kolmanskop
Kolmanskop

Fish River Canyon

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And so it begins, a two week landscape photography tour with a couple of my favourite photographers, Christian Fletcher and Nick Rains, and twelve other wonderful photographers who helped make this a very special journey for me. Stunning scenery, wildlife, more stunning scenery, more wildlife and one on one time with Christian and Nick plus the never ending supply of food.

Fish River Canyon

The second largest canyon in the world (the Grand Canyon in Arizona is the largest) is pretty spectacular but I found it rather difficult to photograph.  The enormity of it was overwhelming, so a little help from Nick and Christian was appreciated to get me started.  Individual cottages lined up along the rim of the canyon was our accommodation for the next few nights.

 Our accommodation at Fish River Canyon was in individual cottages lined up along the rim of the canyon.  The cottages branched out either side of the restaurant, reception, deck and pool area.  As the front of the cottages were glass fronted the view was incredible.  A brilliant coloured sunset greeted us on our first evening.  After that night the wind picked up to a howling gale and we quickly found out why there were no internal doors in the room.  They also provided earplugs with the room key for those that had trouble sleeping with wind noise.

Our days here here at the canyon filled with landscape photography, editing and a game drive for those that wished to.  We went looking for the Mountain Zebra.  Unfortunately the Zebra were not to be found but we did come across Springbok and Oryx.  Here’s a couple of pics from this location.

Thank you for stopping by, I hope you enjoy seeing some of my trip to Namibia.

Fish River Canyon

Sunset Fish River Canyon

 

Sunrise Fish River Canyon

Sunrise Fish River Canyon

 

Quiver Tree

Quiver Tree

 

Fish River Canyon