Deadvlie

Oh my goodness, I've wanted to photograph this location for a long time and was so envious when my daughter Penny and now husband Tom went there around eight years ago. Even so, I was a little nervous because the walk across the sand dune is around a mile (1.5km) and with my camera gear and walking across the soft sand I just hoped I would be okay given it's also hot. Remi very kindly carried my heaviest lens though, which did help a lot. I was fine.

We arrived at the Deadvlie pan around 10:15 a.m. and I was amazed at how many people were there, which meant photography would be more difficult than I had imagined. I gave up trying to get a photo with no one in it - it wasn't impossible, just tricky, and in any case, Photoshop can sort things. I still found it challenging to photograph however, because there are quite a number of old trees and also trees which have finally fallen, or just messy backgrounds. I really enjoyed the time here with time just disappearing. It was also hard to believe just how old the dead trees are. It's an amazing place.

This was just the practice run, however, because we are returning for an early morning session and I must say, visiting now was really useful because in the morning the great light doesn't last long, so to have visited and scouted at the location was of real benefit.Read more