Walking on the Desert Plateau

March 16, 2013

Woke up this morning at 6am after sleeping well in the tent.  The Gogobad team had a party last night in their "Old House" but I wasn't into it.  I went to bed at 9pm.  It was hot at first, but the wind came at 10pm and then it was quite cool and comfortable.

I downed a Red Bull at first light, and made my way back to the Kuisib River bed and up the bank to the start of the Desert Plateau.  I thought briefly about walking up the dune to take another sunrise photo but I actually prefer the long shadows and slanted light of the time just after the sunrise so I stayed on the Mesa floor.

I walked for five hours in the morning, across the plateau and deep into the desert.  No one else was up or around and there were no other sounds except for the sounds of my footsteps and the birds.  The dunes were red, the grasses blue, tan, and green, and the stones were white and brown.  The sun came up over the dunes and filled the plateau with golden light.  Some gemsbok and springbok walked a few miles off.

The longer I walked the more I began to understand the pattern of light and color in the desert.  At times it seems like the wind creates waves with crests in the sand.  Other times, you get swept away with the patterns of light and contrast.  I tried to capture what I saw in landscape abstractions.

Then I began to see the small things below the landscape.  The individual plants. I would get down low near the sand and shoot with shallow depth of field to isolate the plants as a subject.  The rising sun and contrasting colors of the dunes and blue sky created excellent backgrounds.

Then I noticed the small animals living within the plants.  The desert is full of life.  Lizards, snakes, huge ants, a red beetle - there was so much to see when I looked down on the ground.

But by 11am, the sun was too hot and I walked back to camp to pack up my tent and drive off.  Michelle only charged me N$150 a night for the camping.  Gogobad was one of the least expensive destinations in Namibia, but certainly one of the most rewarding from a photography perspective.

I drove then about 100km to the Rostock Ritz to spend a night in a lodge and enjoy some good food.