The trees in Deadvlei, Namibia, are said to be between 600-700 years old. The reason that they’re still there is two-fold. First, these camel thorn trees are made of really dense, hard wood. And second, the air in this region is extremely dry - this is basically one of the driest places on this planet. The trees won’t rot, even if they wanted to. What’s so typical about these skeletons, is that they’re almost black. Well, that’s purely the result of the sun baking them for hundreds of years. Reminds you of putting some sun screen on when you’re here. Now about the image. The composition may seem rather obvious, but trust me - it’s not. I have been running tours to this country for over a decade, and I’ve visited this surreal place over 80 times. Virtually every single photograph that I see of this place has a composition that I’ve either shot myself before, or have at least considered over the years. To make it worse: show me a photograph that was taken here, and I can show you exactly on Google Earth which trees are in your shot and when you photographed them. Yep, that’s scary. What this means, is that it has become incredible difficult for me to find a composition that’s fresh, and quite often I resort to shooting the same or a similar composition, in an effort to improve a previous version. But every time I’m there, I will walk around and re-analyze the location, hoping to see something that I missed before. This composition is one that I had seen before, but it always needed something extra that was never there. On this particular occasion though, the light in the background was interesting, but the best thing was: there were some clouds. Clouds are rare in Deadvlei, so this was a real treat. Ever since I shot this a couple of years ago, I’ve seen only three similar compositions. The reason for this is that in order to see this arrangement, you have to resist the temptation to walk towards the trees with your wide angle, but instead keep your distance and move away from what looks the most interesting. Apparently this is so counter intuitive for most landscape photographers, that the vast majority of them always shoot in the same area. Make no mistake - I’m no better than all those other photographers. When I visit a place for the first time, I also step right into the trap and walk straight at the most obvious compositions. This is understandable and not necessarily a bad thing. It’s always good to see known compositions first before deciding what you want to do differently. And that’s what I think is key - to have the desire to come up with an alternative solution. A good composition is like a three dimensional puzzle - you have to find a way to make all the pieces fit. But once the problem has been solved, there is very little reward for those who solve the same puzzle again: it’s better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation (thank you Herman Melville). - - - If you would like to join us to Namibia, then you’re in luck - our 2016, 2017 and 2018 tours are already fully booked (I know, it’s insane!), but we have added extra tours for 2017 and 2018. Those tours will be led by one of the finest landscape photographers here on 500px and beyond: Ryan Dyar. Ryan is not only a great guy to travel with, he is also a post-processing wizard, and he will show you a bunch of tricks to get the most out of your images. If you want to visit Namibia, look no further. We were the first company to offer photography tours to Namibia, and there is no better organised Namibia tour out there. Also, we are still the only company that offers microlight flights over the famous Namibian sand dunes, which happens to be the best way to do aerial photography, and also by far the most fun. If you're interested in joining Ryan to Namibia, please check out our website for more information, images, video clips, and a very detailed tour PDF: www.squiver.com Hope to see you there! Marsel WEBSITE | FACEBOOK | TWITTER ©2016 Marsel van Oosten, All Rights Reserved. This image is not available for use on websites, blogs or other media without the explicit written permission of the photographer.
