NAMAQUALAND 2014

Some weeks ago, Paddy and I drove to Namaqualand and looked forward to photograph wonderful fields of flowers but warm winds blew a few days before our visit and the daisies had gone to seeds overnight. As we both know the area around Kamieskroon very well, we still found some displays impressive enough to explore both as vistas and with our Macro lenses. I had not been up there for photography for so many years and I found myself just as excited as when I first discovered the many surprises hiding amongst the granite koppies. In the mountains, the pear trees were in full bloom and on the Xnara farm, we met Edward, a Nama shepherd who welcomed us on his land in a mixture of Afrikaans and English, explaining that these days he struggles to speak Nama and delighted me when he summed this up in a most descriptive way saying my tongue can no longer “bok en krul en klak” the difficult sounds of my native language.

We had warm days with beautiful light and visited our favorite sights to discover the little white aquatic spiloxenes still dancing over the streams amongst spectral highlights and the majestic rock formations of the waterfalls glowing in Jerepiko light at the end of the day. We dedicated a morning to the old cars and while framing them in many familiar compositions, we nostalgically spoke about the marvelous time we spent up there and all the friends we made whom had such an important influence on our lives and shaped our photographic eyes.