Namibia trip report (Part 3 - Namib-Naukluft)

This is the 3rd trip report from my latest safari to Namibia You can read my Namibia trip report (Part 1 - Skeleton Coast) entry and also my Namibia trip report (Part 2 - Serra Cafema) entry if you have not already done so.

After winding down our time at Serra Cafema, we took a long bush plane flight down to Swakopmund to fill up with fuel. We flew over the Cape Cross seal colony and turned the plane inward towards the huge dunes of the Namib desert. The absolutely huge dunes of the Namib-Naukluft Park greeted us as we prepared to land. The Sossusvlei / Deadlvei region always blows me away, and this time was no exception.

We spent 3 nights with my friends at Kulala Desert Lodge (Carina the manager is a great friend), which is the closest place to stay to the entrance of the park. It is extremely comfortable and the shorter drives into the park is definitely appreciated, as the area is vast and spread out.

I visited this area 2 times on this trip to Namibia, and I will only include the images that I took from this first visit. I have to admit that I had a very difficult time trying to capture the area in a different way when compared to my previous trips there. I looked at my images and, for the most part, I was unhappy with my experimentation and results. I am not sure why, as I was emotionally connected when taking the shots, but the images on my screen just don't match how I felt when I was taking them. This is the age old challenge for nature photographers, and I got hit hard on this trip.

Overall, I had such a great time on this segment of my Namibia trip. The participants, my co-leader JP, the landscapes, the lodging and all of the staff along the way. This was certainly a trip that I will remember for a long, long time, and I hope to dig a few portfolio additions out of my raw files. I just need to decide which types of images I am really looking for, as I have images that are very similar to those from prior trips, and also new types of images that are very different and are more challenging to process. When I put a portfolio together, I always make sure that the overall tone, color palette and feel are consistent through all of the images. My style of photography is changing right now, and I am not sure where it is going to end up. I am having fun playing around with different looks, for sure, but these new ideas of processing may necessitate my going back to my older Namibia images to re-process them to have a more consistent look and feel to them.

Longitudinal Dune, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 70-400mm, 1/30 @ f/11, ISO 100

Sand Slide, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 24-70mm, 1/15 @ f/13, ISO 100

Photographer in the dunes, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 70-400mm, 1/80 @ f/11, ISO 100

Dunes from above, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 24-70mm, 1/500 @ f/7.1, ISO 200

Dunes near Sossuslvei, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 16-35mm, 1/20 @ f/16, ISO 100

Repeating Triangles, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 70-200mm, 1/40 @ f/11, ISO 100

Photographers in formation, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 70-400mm, 1/100 @ f/4.5, ISO 100

Is this the new definition of a tripod? :-). Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 24-70mm, 1/6 @ f/8, ISO 100

JP at Deadvlei, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 16-35mm, 1/160 @ f/8, ISO 100

Digging in for a shot, Namib-Naukuft Park, Namibia. Sony A900, 70-200mm, 1/30 @ f/5.6, ISO 100

Comments

[Buddy]

Enjoyed the images. The long shadows are quite nice. I particularlly like the shadows on grass on the dune and the one with JP (hope you captured that angle again after JP moved out of frame.)

[Jason]

Kulala Desert lodge is just fantastic. Then Namib-Naukuft park is just magical. The dunes and the salt pan are just unreal! Would love to see more shots and info on post processing that you did.

Thanks!

[GH]

Your shots of Namibia are spectacular. Sony is fortunate to have a shooter like you trying out their system. I wanted to mention quickly that I noticed that you were using ISO 100-200 with the A900 a lot, and you may be interested in knowing that ISO 320 does a better job with shadows, which are plentiful in your pics.

http://forum.getdpi.com/forum/showthread.php?p=100810#post100810