Sojourner

Perhaps I should have saved the title of my previous blog post for this. ‘What the hell am I doing here’ feels very fitting now that I, very surreal, seem to be back in Copenhagen. 84 mind blowing ‘the best days my life’ photography and adventure in Namibia, Western Australia, Malaysia and Borneo have come to a stop. But it is just a temporary stop to get rid of baggage in my life. Sojourning for ever as a travelling photographer. New horizons, new photographs await.

My to-do list is overwhelming with RAW files to develop, getting new web sites, compressing my life and company into a travelling mobile package, prepare for next take off etc. First up is finishing the project for United Plantations and develop their images, so it may be a little while before I get to my own work and new blog posts with new photos.

In the meantime, enjoy this image I shot at Deadvlei in Namibia. Namibia is the photographic highlight of this trip. It is the most beautiful place I have been. I am dead certain it is the most beautiful place in the world! It is also some of the best images I have created.  I dreamed of a whole country of Wide Open Spaces. I dreamed but it was not a dream, it truly exists!

—

“Principal joy of life comes from new experiences” – Christopher McCandless

“I haven’t been everywhere, but it’s on my list!” – Susan Sontag

“I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” – Oscar Wilde

“Must not fear. Fear is the Mind Killer” – Frank Herbert

What am I doing here?

What am I doing here? What the hell am I doing here? I mean that in a positive way! Pinching my arm thinking what am I doing here? Title is Bruce Chatwin’s but the experiences are all mine. Very surreal and a new world for me as I have never been to Southeast Asia; a smorgasbord of new experiences! Having first been to Malaysia for 6 days I am presently on Borneo working for United Plantations; shooting for them on their massive palm oil plantations. I have little time, so enjoy this quick recap of some brilliant experiences from the past 9 days!

Malaysia

A culture shock that would register on the Richter scale is what I experienced landing in Kuala Lumpur straight from the Australian outback: The sights, smells, sounds, the amount of traffic and people, the tropical humidity in the middle of Summer – all senses overloaded! On the 4 lane freeway the motorbikes overtake cars left and right like a computer game. The 400 meter tall Petronsas Twin Towers tower over the city. The mega massive shopping malls from hell. The bustling, dynamic street life where every other house is a restaurant as it is cheaper to eat out than cook. Ending up sleeping two nights in the guestroom of famous Danish author Jørn Riel and wife Annette (thanks so much for your kindness and hospitality!). Kuala Lumpur is a thriving very modern city, very clean and well planned, extremely cheap to live in and I always had a feeling I was witness to the future. Far too busy for me to want to live there, people, cars and motorbikes everywhere, but a fascinating place.

Indonesia, Borneo

The river town of Pangkalan Bun is like stepping 100 years back in time. The river houses thousands of people living in wooden sheds right on the river, all connected by a network of planks and walkways intertwined like some organic network. People do their laundry in the river, take showers, brush their teeth, small two stroke engine powered traditional boats chug along the river, the engine spewing black smoke. Not a single tourist anywhere and certainly I am the only tall blonde Scandinavian, something which causes many smiles from the very friendly very interested locals. A few snapshots of life on the river:

 

The shoot and 5D Mk II’s video

I have the pleasure of working with the crew of Danish reporter Michael Rastrup Smith, Georg from Livingfilms and Michael’s amazing multi-skilled assistant Kai from Thailand. We make a great team and I am learning a lot about producing video! I even ended up as camera operator a few times. We did a few tests, and the video on my Canon 5D Mk II absolutely blows their JVC proHD camera away! So my 5D has seen quite a lot of action mounted on a big video tripod and I am practicing my smooth panning skills. While they shoot video for United Plantations, I shoot stills, landscapes and whatever they need.

I must admit as a landscape photographer in love with untouched nature, there is absolutely nothing beautiful about a plantation. Nothing. It is just ugly man made landscape. Endless straight rows of oil palms as far as the eye can see does not get me high. United Plantations are at the top and doing many great things to run a sustainable operation but as a whole the industry as a whole is a rogue under the radar out of control industry that really needs to be regulated by law. 10% of the things you buy every day contain palm oil yet the industry is totally unregulated. But the people at United Plantation are amazing, I must thank Danish CEOs Carl & Martin for endless kindness and hospitality, the experience is great fun, great opportunity and a good learning experience shooting appealing photos of things you do not find appealing.

Randomness

• Pocari Sweat…is the name of the Indonesian isotonic energy drink I am having while writing this. It has a nice taste and according to the can it is an “ion supply”. Can only be good, although I do not wish to know what the sweat of a ‘Pocari’ is!
• At the Jakarta FM7 airport hotel there is a massage menu in the rooms. You can order all sorts of massages, with or without various versions of  ‘happy endings’ or a special bonus massage called ‘tit relief’ !?!?!???
• Also in the room is a sign saying “Please Complain” !
• Food here is fantastic, incredibly good. Am trying to gain back the 6-7 kilos I seem to have lost somewhere in the wild (as revealed by fancy bathroom weight in fancy Singapore airport hotel).
• Laws of physics do not apply here in Indonesia as there seems to be no limit to the amount of people and things you can fit on 1 single motorbike!
• Copenhagen is next stop after Borneo. Can hardly remember the place or the language. Have thousands of RAW files to develop and a very long to-do list, then a new plane ticket is high on the shopping list!

Sands of Time. Turn the hourglass and next stop Malaysia and Borneo

“The principal joy of human life comes from encounters with new experiences. Hence there is no greater joy than having a new horizon every day”.

The words are Christopher McCandless but are also very Chatwin-esque. I wholeheartedly agree. It is why I love travelling and photographing so much. The promise of a new horizon, new photos, new experiences.

Sands of time has once again run through the hourglass as I bid goodbye to Australia and head for new horizons in Malaysia and Borneo. The downside to these constant new experiences is they also constantly end. It is a rollercoaster of highs and lows. After leaving what quickly felt as a home in Namibia in early May, I now leave what feels like home in Broome, Western Australia. As always feel a little sad having encountered yet another end. But new horizons, new photographs, new experiences await. Would not want it any other way. Rather the highest of highs and lowest of lows than never-ending mediocrity!

In Malaysia and Borneo I am shooting landscapes for United Plantations in and around their palm oil plantations. A visit to see the orangutans are also planned, promises to be rather magical. I do not know if I will have internet access but hope to post a report or two.

I illustrate the Sands of Time with this image from Namibia. A very strong wind is fiercely whipping the sand dunes in the setting sun, creating a magic moment in time on a Wednesday afternoon:

Randomness

• Camel Man! You must read Rod’s super funny CAKE09 blog post about Camel Man & yours truly. I was planning to write the story as well but Rod’s tells it better than anyone. “Albert” is my CAKE09 nickname, something to do with Albert Namatjira (famous aboriginal artist).
  Casey has also posted some great CAKE09 shots on his blog.
• Still on CAKE09 expedition, in Karijini we had to one day do a re-fuel and shopping trip to the mining town of Tom Price. Now, in Tom Price they were setting up a large fair with carousels, rides, etc. As Rod and I pay for our food at the Coles Supermarket the Coles Woman says excited “oooooh are you guys from the fair?”. “Ehhhh…what?” I say and laugh. “We look like we’re from a fair?”.
• I spent a day working for Beaches of Broome backpackers (my home in Broome) shooting new photos for their website. With little preparation, no budget, no models, no props, no flash or light of any kind and me, the landscape photographer, the conditions were challenging. Necessity being the mother of all inventions, Michael (staff from Beaches) and I simply hi-jacked 3 backpackers who agreed to model and posed them in rooms, having breakfast, riding scooters, at the bar etc. and I fired away hoping for something useable. Was lots of fun and a few of the photos are even halfway ok. Joe McNally need not worry though! Will let you know when some of our work is online at the Beaches website.

Three Men in a Troopie

Plans. Some say life is what happens when you are busy making other plans. I disagree. Life is simply What Happens, plans or no plans. Sometimes What Happens when you have no plans is rather incredible though. Such as Casey Smith inviting me along on his and Rod Thomas’ 12 day Cape Leveque And Karijini Photography Expedition – CAKE09 – travelling and shooting thousands of kilometres of Western Australia landscapes from Broome to Cape Leveque to Broome to Karijini National Park to Broome!

So begins the tale of Three Men in a Troopie. Fellow photographers and Aussies Casey Smith and Rod Thomas and yours truly the international superstar (cough) in Casey’s Toyota Landcruiser “Troopie”. Three Men, 5 cameras, 3 tripods, swags, tents, food, drinks and Australia’s largest state. This epic journey will be the topic of several posts to come, so what follows are just a teaser (long teaser) and some quick ‘n rough developed images (cropped single shots, no stitching, laptop is already dying by Lightroom and tropical heat). Many more images to come from our expedition to these fantastic CAKE09 destinations:

Cape Leveque

The remote corner of Cape Leveque is 200 kilometres north of Broome in a 4WD, home to white beaches, blue skies and red cliffs. And Three Men in a Beach shelter. The shelter is really 3 walls and a roof made of palm leaves. It is perfect, we had an outstanding camp right on the beach (all houses should have sand for floors!). Outstanding camp. Outstanding fun. Outstanding weather. Outstanding photographers. Cape Leveque slightly less outstanding though. Nice and beautiful, sure, and we did get some great clouds. But, pristine, not. Too many photo-wreckers (people), too many foot prints in the sand. Something is up with the horizon here as well. I shot some horribly crooked images including one mega crooked horizon shot (I blame the beach, tripod was sinking) that I promised Rod I would post un-edited…stay tuned! Having shot every angle we left one day early as we wanted to do a sunset shot at…

James Price Point

Just 60 kilometres north of Broome it is what Cape Leveque isn’t. Untouched. Cliffs are higher and a deeper red, blues are bluer, whites are whiter, beaches are pristine and no photo-wreckers (people), all serenity! Price Point will soon have a large gas hub on the beach though – Save the Kimberley! – so get up there and get your images before you have to clone out a gas pipe line on this beach:

Marble Bar

The hottest town in Australia, a fact the town is very proud of. Record is 167 straight days with temperatures reaching 40+ degrees. Population…well, the couple running the caravan park (they opened the office when we arrived at 3pm, not the busiest day ever), two women and two kids at the Info office and we saw the same couple with two kids twice. So population, around 11-12 people. We pit-stopped here for one day on the way to Karijini having arrived via the lesser known but extremely beautiful Boreline dirt road, taking us through some amazing Pilbara landscapes that are truly spectacular:

Possibly the funniest quote of CAKE09 is also from Marble Bar. Having asked for directions to the caravan park at the Information/Internet/Tele office, we asked for a good spot to shoot the sunset. “Oh you mean photography” says Info Woman and proceeds “You should ask Steve. He’s down at the Garage. He’s an amateur photographer. He is REALLY good!”. Steve, if you read this, we are not knocking your work, it just came out extremely funny! Incidentally, when shooting the sunset in Marble Bar do not go to the top of the Water Tank hill. View is remarkably ordinary. We should have asked Steve. I did shoot a stitched pano of Marble Bar at sunset from the water tank, a piece of art I plan to flog to the Info Woman, I think it is just what tourism in Marble Bar needs.

Karijini National Park

More than 1,000 kilometres south of Broome in the heart of Western Australia’s Pilbara region is the Karijini National Park. Home to gorgeous gorges with waterfalls, water holes and steep beautiful iron rich deep ochre coloured rock walls. Home to beautiful Pilbara landscapes featuring the Hamersley Ranges, blue sky, ochre red dirt, golden yellow and green spinifex grass and white gum trees. Also home to Three Men in a Tent for 7 days!

I am all about ‘Grandscapes’, shots of wide open spaces with sky and horizon. So while Casey and Rod abseiled into gorges on their private tour with the excellent West Oz Active guides, I explored the red soil topside by for example hiking Mt Vigors with the excellent RemTrek Adventures. View from the 900 meter peak is outstanding, offering a 360 degree panoramic view of the region. One of my images of the outstanding sunset from Mount Vigors:

I also shot several gorges and pools but I am not so confident about the results. Could not shoot a good water shot to save my life although I may have done another waterfall shot I like. Images will be a while to come, as I shot many of them as HDRs and they need work to work, so stay tuned, and also read the blogs from Casey and Rod for beautiful gorge images from their abseiling adventures.

Last day in Karijini rain was forecast and the clouds brought us a beautiful sunrise with a touch of Pilbara Magic. Shooting into the rising sun, clouds on fire, I look back and am awestruck. Big fat rain clouds are lit up over the Hamersley Ranges and a perfect 180 degree rainbow hovers above it. It is astoundingly beautiful. Unfortunately before I find a composition, rainbow is fading as quickly as it appeared, leaving me with this image and many more gorgeous cloudscapes that was a perfect end to Karijini for me:

Camping at the Karijini Eco Retreat (no fancy expensive eco tents for us, I brought my outstanding $32 tent from Coles supermarket, a tent which Casey actually ended up using) is a great and true outback Pilbara experience, sleeping right on the Pilbara red rocks. Outstanding fun was had at camp again. But also a bit cold at night. Karijini in June is winter, 20-25 midday but gets down to 5 or even colder at night. One time it was warmer in the fridge than outside. One morning there was rim frost. My brain does not pack well at 6am so I left warm woolly sweater purchased in Namibia + my jacket back in Broome! Only the tough survive – using a National Geographic windbreaker. I also hope deep ochre red colour comes into fashion. My skin and my clothes will be very trendy!

Three Men in a Troopie – to be continued

I have just scratched the surface (and stolen the title from Tim Flannery), many more CAKE09 images and stories to come. My deepest thanks to Casey and Rod for inviting me along, do check out their websites and blogs, they are REALLY good! Casey Smith: web and blog. Rod Thomas: web and blog.

Randomness

• Karijini and gravity. First I dropped my 77mm filter adapter ring into Joffre Gorge. Went pling-pling-splash then floated down a waterfall. Brilliant. Means I now hand hold filters resulting in more than one shot with my fingers in the image! Numbnuts here also dropped 77mm lens cap in rocks, spent 30 minutes finding it again. Then dropped it again at Dales Gorge but got it back. Driving back to Broome we get out to shoot the clouds, I had been videoing road trains so had my camera in my lap. First thing to fall out of my door onto dirt road – is my lens cap!
• Western Australia is one huge state. Friday Super Driver Casey in his Super Troopie truck drove from Karijini to Paraburdoo to drop Rod at the airport, then from Paraburdoo to Broome. 1230 kilometres from 5.00am to 6.30pm. Longest I’ve ever travelled in a car in one day and on the map it doesn’t even look like all that much as shown here. Turned on GPS once in a while to check progress, at one point it says “turn left in 395 kilometres!”. Great Northern Highway is really great and really long!
• Rod’s Manfrotto tripod with leveling base and huge 3-way head is so heavy it should be registered as a lethal weapon. Watch yourself if you walk behind him, when Rod wears this giant on his shoulder and swings around you could be knocked sideways into the neighbouring gorge!

Kimberley, final frontier, no shock absorbers

Kimberley. Final Frontier. Captain’s log, stardate 8975.1. We received a distress call from bloody tourists lost in the wild and have been sent to investigate. We are not at warp speed 9 but bumping along on a corrugated washboard-like dirt road that threatens to dislocate every bone in our body. Scotty is keeping the engine alive with a never ending supply of Scottish swear words. Our phasers are useless in this setting and have been replaced by cans of mossie repellant. First officer Flemming has clearly lost it, keeps repeating ‘Into the Wild’.

The Gibb River Road and the Kimberley area of Australia is often described as the ‘final frontier’. Well, Space is the final frontier, but the Kimberley is still a wild, remote, rough and reasonably untouched wilderness part of Australia. Three times the size of England, home to only 35,000 people but you will be surprised by the amount of people you meet since there is only one main road. But  you can at least pretend you’re charting uncharted territory as you bump along on corrugated dirt roads into the wild:

Driving the Gibb River Road is as much about the journey as the destination. Photographic opportunities are there but can be few and far between. I have a knack for attracting extraordinary light and clouds but used up most of this year’s supply in Namibia. Light was bland, but the journey was amazing, had a brilliant time with a brilliant group, got the shots I wanted and the shots I promised my mate at All Terrain Safaris. A brilliant journey! A few highlights:

Windjana Gorge at dawn

If you are a regular reader, you know I love Windjana gorge as described in this post. The power of this place is awesome. This time I walked in the gorge at 5am in the darkness, the eyes of freshwater crocodiles reflected in torch light. Many people do not think much of Windjana Gorge, but it is my favourite gorge in The Kimberley. You can feel the Bunuba people’s spirit here as you stand in between the mighty towering walls of what was once a coral reef under water in the Devonian period, some 350 million years ago! You can also feel the pain of Bunuba’s massacred by the police.

Composition is hard here and it helps to re-visit this gorge a few times. The view is so wide you need to stitch a lot of shots to capture the grandscape here, this is just a quick cropped jpeg preview of a wide angle shot at sunrise:

Mitchell Plateau

The Mitchell Plateau and mighty Mitchell Falls was new for me, was my main mission and what an awe inspiring experience it was. And I am not easily impressed by waterfalls. A waterfall itself is boring, but string 4 of them together, have them roaring down a massive plateau shaking the ground you walk on ending with an 80 meter fall into a massive pool surrounded by towering walls -  and I am mighty impressed!

To find a vantage point without trees or grass in your shot takes courage, dedication and a love of spinifix grass cutting up your legs! I scouted the very rocky bushy area and without falling into the abyss, found a good spot someway down a cliff face. I had my tripod right on the edge of a 200 meter drop, holding on to a tree with one hand, cable release in the other. I had the 4 tiered Mitchell Falls roaring in front of me drowning all sounds and the abyss threatening to swallow me. A sensational and humbling experience of power, Mother Nature showing off!

As you can see I used a bit of my powers to attract beautiful clouds on this special day, was the one day with nice light!

The Gibb River Road is a bumpy corrugated dirt road but having just been grated it was in very good condition. Now the Gibb is a six lane tar highway compared to parts of the Kalumburu Road leading up to the Mitchell Falls. Rocky, bumpy, treachery with river crossings, it is 6-8 hours of bone and car breaking track! Day before we got there, two 4wds rolled over on the track. We only broke off both back shock absorbers (shockies) on the truck. Not that it made much difference, track is so rough you hardly feel the difference, shockies or no shockies!

King Brown Snake

I like snakes and I have finally seen a King Brown Snake in the wild! They are highly venomous and have a bit of a reputation of being aggressive but I reckon you are fine with snakes as long as you do not step on them or do anything stupid like pick them up! This King Brown Snake was spotted at night, 10 meters from our camp. About 1,6 meters long it was obviously cold and shy, moving very slowly through the grass just trying to get to cover. So beautiful. Peaceful. Potentially lethal. I slept fine outside under the stars in my swag, no worries, happy to have met and share camp with a King Brown.

Randomness

• 4 weeks of walking in bare feet or thongs (flip-flops) have almost cured my toes. And made me hate socks and shoes, back to nature, into the wild in bare feet! My feet will never get clean again, a little warning to Rod and Casey who I will soon be going on road trips with!
• My little portfolio photo book is a huge success and I really recommend bringing something like this with you as a travelling photographer. Had I brought 50 copies I would have sold them all (and had to pay for a bit of overweight on the plane with the earnings!). I have been taking orders from everyone interested, a photo book from me is definitely coming up later this year so stay tuned.
• What the hell is going on with me and mossies on this trip? I continue to donate blood, I continue my love/hate relationship (they love me, I hate them) but this is getting ridiculous. I tempt fate by sleeping outside of course but even on Cable Beach they track me down and have a feast. Fresh Scandinavian blood is obviously a delicacy for mossies!

Gibb River Road and We eat the snake!

I will be offline for 8 days as I depart Wednesday for a trip up the good old Gibb River Road in Kimberley, Australia! I am going with All Terrain Safaris, I am friends with the manager and in return for the trip, will be shooting landscapes for me – and him. He has also asked me for some ‘people shots’ for his website so I’ll have to remember to disable my Anti-Face-Recognition software! We’re going up the Mitchell Plateau up to Mitchell Falls where I have never been before. Should be interesting, the Mitchell road is so bad it breaks 4WDs in half and eat them for breakfast and people regularly get stuck up there!
Until I return, enjoy my personal favourite of all my Kimberley images:

Kimberley, Silent Grove Sunrise Panorama
© Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Randomness

• Many years working in IT, dealing with servers, storage, faulty hard drives, corrupted files, blown up controller, blown brain cells on operator (me) has made me paranoid about data protection – see my post on backing up your images. While travelling I have 4 copies of each RAW file. The images from Namibia are priceless, irreplaceable, can never be re-shot. The light we had was one in a million, the trip I had was unique. So I am not formatting the memory cards from Namibia (memory cards are almost impossible to kill). And I still have 4 copies on 4 hard drives of each RAW file. I even carry one, a small WDC Passport drive, everywhere I go so even if my room is raided, or the backpackers burn down – I still have my files!!!!! Like I said, paranoid! Storage is cheap, my images are priceless (to me at least). Murphy’s Law is real and he was a very optimistic person!
• Having not walked into anything seriously for two weeks my sprained foot and toes (one of them at a strange new angle?) are ready for outback action. Hope the Flying Doctors answers our call as I foresee beautiful clouds and me walking into more things! Need new bionic left leg!
• Absolutely brilliant quote from the brilliant book ‘Someone Else’s Country’ by Peter Docker, spoken by an aboriginal elder. Adam is of Adam and Eve of course. ‘Mob’ basically means people or group.
  “We’re not Adam’s mob though.
  Snake come offering apple?
  We eat the snake! haha!”
  I want that on a T-shirt! Snake offers apple? I eat the snake!

All in a day’s work for Mother Nature

Nature never ceases to amaze me. No matter how many days, nights, sunrises and sunsets I experience, Mother Nature always comes up with something new. It is one of the reasons I love landscape photography so much. Trying to capture these short moments of magic that most people never see, never experience, never even notice. I can think of no greater thing to point my camera at than Nature itself. We pale in comparison.

I previously mentioned that the laws of physics seemed warped in Namibia. The clear desert air removed all filters, we had pure 100% Nature. That horizon seemed to always be at infinity. That sky was twice as tall as anything else. After shooting in the desert we would be driving home through the gravel desert. Driving West towards the coast and Swakopmund we were going straight into the most striking fiery red and orange post-dusk light in a banner on the horizon. Not dusk really, but post-dusk, a good 30-40 minutes after sunset. In every other direction no light existed, except for a million stars like diamonds in the sky. To the right perhaps the moon. And always to the left, our trusty night sky companion – The Southern Cross. One time we just had to stop, kill the engine, get out and stare into the universe. Stare back into time. No words can describe it, no camera can capture it. You have to be there.

I have attempted to capture some of Nature’s work. They are not necessarily art, but are simply attempts to document Nature warping the laws of physics!

Glowing night clouds in Namibia. This is not dusk light. The sunset lit up the clouds, then they went dark. Then dusk light lit up the clouds, then they went dark. But then…they lit up again! On fire. It was pitch black except for these night clouds on fire. I stared in disbelief, finally had to get out and try and document this. It was pitch black, couldn’t see the camera. It was also blowing a gale. It is a 10 second exposure, iso400, f/6.3 – tells you how little light there was. Live view on my camera gave up, was just blackness. Couldn’t see much in viewfinder so I just pointed. And got this. Night clouds on fire. White part in top right corner is the moon, shame I didn’t get that. The ‘frozen wave’ on the horizon is the infamous mist/fog coming in to swallow the coast and Swakopmund!

Dusk lighting up the atmosphere in the Namib gravel Desert, opposite direction of the setting sun. The blue line is actually the earth’s shadow, it is blocking the dusk light from hitting air particles in the lower part of the sky – hence the pink/blue banners. I have seen this many times before but never so clear, so colourful as in the desert! Desert makes everything clearer.

Rain cloud in the Namib Desert, you can see where it touches the ground. Most rain in the desert never hits the ground, it evaporates long time before that. This is a rain cloud that gave us a few hundred drops of water in the middle of the desert for about two minutes. Just enough to register some drops on the windscreen. We experienced rain in the desert! When locals tell you “we had 15 centimeters of rain” that means that they measured the distance between the rain drops and they were 15cm apart!

And lastly, a sunset from Cable Beach in Australia where Mother Nature really turned on all the party lights and just lit up every cloud! She also kindly arranged a low tide so I could get mega reflections. I have a stitched 180 degree pano of this coming up, actually for a full 360 degrees the sky was on fire. A 5 minute demonstration of power, of Mother Nature having a party!

The camera’s we use nowadays are incredibly advanced hi-tech tools. Yet I always feel I am holding the equivalent of a stone age tool when Nature flexes it’s muscles. Nothing can capture that. Will not ever keep me from trying though! Won’t keep me from having my head in the clouds, walking into things!
I am a Nature Junkie!

A day with the Jarlmadangah mob

This week I had the pleasure of visiting the Jarlmadangah Burru aboriginal community and spending a day out in their gorgeous Country. I am fascinated and have a deep respect and interest in the indigenous people of this world and had a fantastic time learning about law, culture and history of the two language groups in Jarlmadangah Burru. One of the young fellas, Angus, in training to be a tour guide, even tried to teach me a lot of words in the Nyikina language! Not easy, it is a complicated language to repeat!

In almost every country in the world where white man appeared and stole the land by planting a flag (see Eddie Izzard’s funny ‘do you have a flag?’ skit), the indigenous people suffered terribly. Namibia was and is certainly no exception, the Herero were almost wiped out systematically, San people removed from their land – and they still have apparently the greatest economic disparity in the world. Denmark is no exception. Australia is no exception. Australia has treated the original, the first Australians, absolutely appallingly. Removing them from their Country (after having called Australia uninhabited in the first place to get around any legal problems). Slave labour on stations, murder, rape, massacres etc. Passing a law that says the police will come and take your children. Think about it. Say your government passed a law that meant the police showed up, stole your children, you would never see them again! Introduction of alcohol has also been devastating for aboriginal communities. 50 to 60,000 years of culture, knowledge and law on the verge of extinction. A rich country like Australia and the Original Australians live in 3rd world country conditions. I am quite often ashamed to be white but that’s just me.

Anyway, it is a topic of another long post some day -  it was a pleasure to see a dry (meaning no alcohol) community like Jarlmadanga Burru working so well and I loved the short time I got to spend with Harry the elder and the rest of the guys at the community! It was great fun and a privilege to gain such insight! Wish I could have spend a week with you fellas!  I went with their own tour company, owned by the community – “Purely Unreal” Kimberley Dreamtime Adventure Tours. Great, albeit slightly long name! I highly recommend this tour. If you are in Broome I would say you have to do this, it is that good! You will have a brilliant, fun day with people from the community, do a camel ride (Harry the elder loves his camels!) in the gorgeous Country, see rock art and have a unique experience! I wanted to spend two days out there, unfortunately only the one-day tour was running but if I am lucky I will go again on the two-day tour.

This day was all about the experience, not about photography. But of course, I did shoot a few ‘snapshots’ with the 5D mk II

Large boab trees lead the way to the community

Boys from the community having fun!

Beautiful Jarlmadangah Burru Country!

Their Country is gorgeous, I could shoot for weeks in there. The largest boabs I have ever seen. White gorgeous snappy gum trees, red rock, caves with rock arts. Just confirms what I already knew from Hawk Dreaming – some of the best areas of Australia are fortunately not accessible to the public! We can only hope it stays that way, although if the mining companies have their way, Kimberley will be one big mine soon!

For more images, check out the beautiful gallery at the tour site for Purely Unreal Kimberley Dreamtime Adventure Tours! And next time you are in Broome, this is the tour to do! If you would like to know more about aboriginal culture, law and country, I know some great books, do email me.

On Broome Time and oh the stupidity.

Lazy Days. Holiday mode. I don’t usually allow myself much time to relax while travelling (must shoot photos. Will die if I don’t. Eternally Restless) but have been forced into lazy holiday mode. I am now in Broome, Western Australia, a small but popular outback town where relaxation in 34 degree perfect sunny days is not too bad at all. Why am I forced into holiday mode? My own stupidity!

Last week, walking down the street to Cable Beach with my head in the clouds as usual – I have a real problem with not looking where I am going – I am actually studying the beautiful clouds thinking this will be a stunner of a sunset. Up comes the big heavy Detour sign (ironic isn’t it). Now, I pay this no attention at all but simply hammer my left foot (just wearing a thong or flip-flops as some people know them) full force into the sign. I fall forward. I get my head out of the clouds just in time to brace the fall. At which point the tripod, in the tripod holder on my camera backpack, slides forward at great speed, comes to a full stop when it collides the stationary object that is my head and proceeds to tattoo a Gitzo logo in the back of my skull. Ouch. I now lie in the red dirt. I take a few seconds to gather myself and wonder what hurts the most, my foot, my head or my dignity. I choose all 3 but the following day reveals two toes on my left foot commands attention. Nothing broken but very severely sprained and coloured like a rainbow. Can almost not bloody walk at all, left foot now 2 sizes larger than right foot. Need to use tripod as a crutch and generally look ridiculous as I limp around Broome with yet another bump in my head and an Elephant’s foot.

It is a big disappointment, but somehow lucky that the All Terrrain Photo tour was cancelled (didn’t get enough bookings). I would need a wheel chair for that. So, all original plans are off, and can’t walk, need new plans! I had such amazing light in Namibia, I think I used up my luck for a while. I may go up the Gibb River Road next week after some more recovery. Also need to adjust to a new leg of this tour as Namibia was such an incredible experience, I can’t really get over that it had to end at some point. My desert, where are thou now?

Well, I have managed to get around and shoot some in Broome, Cable Beach, Town Beach, Gantheaume Point, Reddell Beach etc. Decided I could at least build up a good stock library of Broome images. It is not art, but stock images are nice, they usually pay the bills so we can afford to shoot art. Here’s a few of my Broome stock images:

Sunset on Cable Beach. Managed to find a bit of sand dunes with ripples on Cable Beach! Not quite the Namib, but it’s sand! Crazy sky is smoke from bush fires lit up by the setting sun.

Surreal water- and cloudscape – Cable Beach at dusk. Shot roughly one hour after my little accident. The colours at dusk in the tropics can sometimes be simply ridiculous. Like, you look at it and think, how is that possible in nature? I attempted to create a slightly abstract surreal look here. Water and a beach is clearly not my element, I don’t really know how to shoot it and I’m not very good at stitching wave shots. Earth is my element!

The famous Broome ‘Staircase to the moon’.

It is the full moon reflected into the mud banks at low tide. Only happens of course when there’s a full moon (duh) and a low tide as the moon rises so the exposed water on the mud banks can reflect the light. In every shop in Broome you can buy photos, canvas, postcards etc. of the Staircase to the Moon. I needed my shot as well, even though it is impossible to create anything that doesn’t look like all the other images of this. In the image on the left, I chose to blend two exposures, one for the moon, one for the foreground as I wanted more detail in the foreground than you usually see. Also, even though I had seen a thousand images of this it really was quite special to witness this as it really is good fun and a bit of magic. Locals told me it was the best in years, so a bit of luck I still have left. I also had heaps of fun explaining moon photography to a crowd of many who noticed tripod and gear etc. The moon itself is actually super bright (it is reflected sunlight, like daylight!) so shoot it almost like it was daylight!

Randomness

• My bag of clothes arrived 3 days late from Johannesburg. When I leave home I spend a few hours precision packing everything into camera bag (bring on plane) and big check-in bag. It is the only time this is possible, on next flight I will have bought stuff and shuffled everything around and can’t be bothered and it just never fits in one bag again. So I have an Eagle Creek soft compact fold-out duffel bag I then use for clothes etc. meaning two check-in bags. Jo’burg airport is apparently notorious for handlers ‘lending’ items from luggage in the airport. Somehow (got no idea how) my custom street-modded Panasonic LX-3 compact (see image) complete with Voigtlander 21mm viewfinder and leather strap was in the clothes bag. Was. Is no more. Some lucky thief in Jo’burg now uses this! He seemed less interested in my underwear as that was left in the bag!
• I think the tripod knocked a few braincells loose! As I said, been shooting around Broome. Went to Gantheaume Point. Then remembered it is all rocks. Navigated this in thongs on one leg. Then remembered I had forgotten mossie spray. Was promptly eaten alive. Some Aussies from Noosa took photos of me taking photos from top of a rock and doing the ‘insects go away dance’ and kindly came to the rescue, spraying me with Bushman mossie spray. Also dropped ND grad filter in sand about 10 times. Brain not really working!

Desert. Snake. Lizard. Fremen. Me

Besides the odd strange visitor like yours truly, the desert is home to some fascinating creatures. Creatures highly skilled in desert survival. Snakes. Lizards. Spiders. Scorpions. Chameleons. And I am sure I caught a glimpse of a Fremen from Frank Herbert’s masterpiece Dune.

Surviving in the deadly inhospitable desert requires centuries of finely honed skills. As much as I like to call desert home, reality is I would not last long! At dawn and dusk the desert is the most magical place on this planet. At noon it is a harsh hot deadly inhospitable place where sand temperatures can easily reach 75 degrees and the sun kills you by dehydration. You do not notice at first because you do not sweat much, there is no moisture and the warm wind and sun evaporates the sweat from your skin. You do not realise you are loosing precious water, you just taste the dry desert in your mouth. You are getting killed by the desert! I can pretend I am a Fremen, call desert home all day long but I would die in an instant compared to the experts of the desert! Experts that fortunately I managed to get a few photos of:

Classic windswept dunescape, just outside Swakopmund. I am sure there is a Fremen here!

Sidewinder snake. Small highly venomous 30cm long desert adapted snake. Buries itself in the sand and waits for prey. Sidewinding movement not only means it can climb sand dunes it also means the least amount of skin touch the warm sand during forward movement.

Web footed gecko. Practically transparent as it has no pigment in the skin, rather unpractical for a desert creature. 20 seconds of sun kills it right away. So it adapts and buries itself in the sand using webby feet and only comes out at night.

Photographer (me), pretending to be a Fremen at the ‘Moon Landscape’ outside Swakopmund, now to be renamed Flemming’s Mars Landscape as this looks much more like Mars!

I shot the snake and gecko images on a trip with a wildlife expert who spots the tracks and finds the animals in the dunes. You have little chance of spotting these yourself unless you step on a buried sidewinder. We found 4 sidewinder in one morning, as I am a big snake lover I was very thrilled and very happy to get some snakes in the wild shots! I am impressed by their speed, I was running up a dune next to it trying to keep up, focus, compose and shoot while not tripping over my own legs. Great fun!

Same wildlife expert told me that once the sun in Namibia has burned your skin, you are hooked. Addicted. Gotta come back. Soon. I believe it. Happened to me. Addicted. Hooked. Gotta come back! Soon! Magic of the Namib. Namib Dreaming. And I still have hundreds of desert images to develop and show you from this first trip! Capturing the African desert is my new project!

Randomness

• Africa is not for sissies! Neither is African Rugby. Was watching a rugby game at Jo’burg airport and 9:54 minutes into the rugby game (a game where players larger than Hulk crash into each other at full speed protected only by much-too-small T-shirts and shorts) two players have already been seriously injured.
• Africa is not for sissies! You can only really rely on your family and friends so there is a very tight bond and people really help each other. In many ways it’s good, you have to really take control of your own life. No expecting society to do everything for you. There are downsides of course.  Government and Police can be an up and down experience. Public transport is your feet. Another police story I heard is a person calling in a crime and the officer on the phone says “Can’t help, I don’t know that street”. The person has to explain that “it is the same street your police station is on, you’re in the street already!!!!”
• My escape from the next Danish Winter may very well be to a Namibian farm, family of my friend, where I have been offered work. Something I may seriously do! Stay tuned as this blog switches from landscape photography to tutorials on farming and feeding farm animals!