Blogg

April 2010

Sometimes nature is just too beautiful to capture…..
I have been spending this month scouting the cliffs and beaches of Walker Bay Nature Reserve (De Kelders) in search of images. In my line of work I see a lot of beautiful scenes, and I see and a lot of sunsets and sunrises. But there comes a time when your camera falls short of capturing the range of colors that a sunset/-rise can render. For instance this top image: This was one of those sunsets where you wish you could just sit down and enjoy the moment. It was beautiful. The sun reflecting off the clouds was painting the see red , and in-between these red blotches was a deep bluish purple color in the water. My camera fell short from capturing all these elements and I was somewhat disappointed when I later saw the result on my computer.

The fishermen…..
Walker Bay is very popular for it’s fishing and I took the opportunity of placing some of them in my compositions, showing man’s interaction with nature. My husband joined me one night and promptly caught a galjoen on his second throw, he was instantly hooked (excuse the pun) and I have a feeling we will be seeing a lot more of Walker Bay in the future.

Walker Bay at night….
When you open the camera’s shutter for a long period, the movement of the waves paint brushstrokes in the image and eventually you end up with water that seems like mist. I love these images. You never know what to expect until that shutter closes.
In both these images above, the shutter was left open for 30 seconds. It was already dark enough for me to have to work with a torch and composing a dark landscape was a hit and miss case, but the times I got it right was worth all the other botched tries and the stumbles over rocks, back to the car.


Eish, those dunes….
There is a patch of dunes, situated roughly in the middle of the reserve about 1km inland from the beach. There is no easy way to get there than to walk. It is a stiff walk between fynbos and then another stiff walk over dunes to get to the middle where there is no vegetation around. My camera gear weighs about 8kg and I’m used to lugging it around, but that walk broke this camel’s back! Picking your footing between fynbos and watching out for cobras and climbing one dune after the other was no fun, I tell you. And to top it off - no sun to show the veins in the dunes, just a watery sunset….
It’s a beautiful place though. Sometimes you walk onto a landscape and it is as if you can feel it’s soul. Arniston is one such place and some stretches of the Theewaterskloof dam as well, and this stretch of dunes in the middle of nowhere, also. It has a calming effect that lifts your spirit the moment you set foot there.
( or maybe it’s just the relieve of arriving at last!)


Northern Cape…..
I am leaving on Saturday on a 20 day tour of the Northern Cape to broaden my portfolio. I will be able to check on my e-mails from time to time, but will be out of reach for the most part. I will be back at the office 22 May.