Namibia's North

Namibia lies high on the bucket list of many photographers around the world. Why wouldn’t it. Every year international photographic salons showcase imagery created in the extraordinary Namib Desert - ancient remains of long dead trees surrounded by jarringly red and orange sands, the hauntingly beautiful abandoned town of Kolmanskop - slowly consumed by the desert sands as it spills through doorways and over windowsills - to the eerily alien like landscape of the south: Quiver Trees perched on dolomitic boulders seemingly stacked haphazardly by some ancient giant creature.


We haven’t reached pre-covid levels of travel yet, but it certainly felt like we had as I narrowly managed to get to the front of the immigration queue at Namibia’s Husea Kutako airport, just moments before a large aircraft from Europe disgorged it’s load of passengers. Quizzing travellers while waiting for luggage and again later at the first accommodation of my own route, the usual destinations were rattled off: Sossusvlei, Luderitz, Swakopmund, Giant’s Playground, Fish river Canyon and of course a beginning or ending in Etosha. Apart from Etosha, all these locations are in the south of the country.

An entire treasure trove of locations is just waiting to be discovered in Namibia’s North. This was our destination as I headed off with a group of three other photographers to travel through and photograph the the less traveled roads of Damaraland and the Kaokoveld. Talking to venders and hospitality staff at the various places we popped into, they were also incredulous at how quiet it was in terms of travellers visiting. The South, to all intents and purposes, is heaving with tourists. The North, not so much.

That’s part of the allure I suppose, for a photographer who gets a rash when surrounded by too many other people. I personally like it when you have an extraordinary vista and landscape all to yourself. Of course there were the occasional others that we bumped into along the way, but for the most part we were greeted to vast landscapes where we were often standing on our own taking in the enormity of the place.

Unlike a lot of our more landscape focused photography workshops, Namibia’s North is a mixed bag genre opportunities. We started our journey on Etosha’s eastern flank, spending a few nights at the opulent Onguma Private Game Reserve, ducking in and out of Etosha proper for some game drives to the edge of the famous pan. Naturally we spent most of our time concentrating on wildlife photography here. It’s really more of an opportunity to visit the famous park though, as April is not necessarily the best time of year to do wildlife photography. There’s simply too much water thanks to the late summer rains. It means that wildlife doesn’t necessarily congregate around waterholes in the same density as they do during the drier winter months.

That doesn’t mean that you are without excellent wildlife opportunities of course. We had multiple sightings of Cheetah in Onguma, the usual huge herds of plains game in Etosha, dozens of giraffe, Spotted Hyena, all manner of birdlife and phenomenal sightings of a elephant as they traversed the edge of the pan. Wildlife though, is still not the core reason we visit Namibia’s North with Nature’s Light.

April is the best time of the year to view the awesome Kunene River as it flows down from Angola. Although it can still be hit and miss, April is the most likely time of year to be able to see the impressive Ruacana Falls in flood. This is the best time of year for the seasonal floods from further north to flow down the river, necessitating the opening of the sluice gates on the Ruacana dam wall…so quite literally the only time that the falls are in flow. We didn’t quite hit full flood, but it was awesome to have water flowing down the sides of the smooth black stone cliffs.

An unexpected highlight was found traveling down the rutted road along the southern banks of the Kunene River. Here we cam across a group of young Himba men moving their group’s herd of cattle between camps. The cattle were driven at pace along the gravel road, kicking up dust, saliva flying from their mouths and noses, while the men kept a relentless pace at their sides. Their extraordinary fitness and strength was on display as they kept up the pace unflaggingly for a good 5km before they started to slow, now to a trot as opposed to their earlier all-out sprint.

The highlight of the waterfall show from this particular workshop was Epupa Falls. Again, due to the higher water flow of the Kunene, the falls at Epupa stretch across the river (now at 500m wide) and cascade through several falls over a distance of 1,5km with the highest falls gushing through a narrow slot down 60m. You can’t actually get close to the bulk of the falls as they lie across a fast moving downstream section of the falls, essentially on an island in the river, but you can get right up to the powerful falls on the southern bank where the water flows like a giant drain into a narrow chute. Then there is the phenomenal view of the falls from viewpoints in the hills around the site which make for fantastic early morning imagery. Particularly as the low sun creates rays of light through the mist of the falls.

Getting anywhere in Namibia takes time. The country is just so vast. Our next major location was Purros; the confluence of two rivers, the Gomatum and Hoarusib Rivers. Often these rivers are dry, with water flowing beneath the river sand surface. Again, thanks to late summer rains, the Hoarusib was flowing gently through the oasis of palm and trees and acacias. The Gomatum valley itself lies between two rows of mountains that form a buffer between the Skeleton Coast and the Kaokoveld to the east. The result is fine desert sand blowing into depression between the ranges, creating massive dunes that lie up against the western flanks of the mountains.

This was our destination, but it still took us two days to reach this as we traversed the scenic landscape. Entering the alley between the mountains that wall in the Gomatum, we also picked up our first flat tyre of the journey. This is almost to be expected on any extended travel in Namibia. The gravel roads, albeit usually excellent, are punishing on vehicles and their tyres. Still, caught early, it just meant finding a relatively shaded area (hardly any exist) to sweat it out and change tyres.

Purros feels like being in one of the most remote regions of the planet. Obviously there is no cellphone signal. The night sky is truly inky black as you are far from any sizeable settlements. The closest town is Sesfontein, some 100km away, and even that is tiny, really nothing more than a small village. So this was a great location to start working on some night sky images over the dunes and facing towards the Milky Way as it arced into the sky. You know you are really in the wilderness when the warning given before heading out is that, ‘the desert lion have been spotted in the vicinity  so be aware of that as you photograph’, and on return spending a few moments watching an elusive brown hyena as it pretends not to be seen by our vehicle headlights.

Traveling further south we made our way to the enormous and striking Brandberg mountain (we did this via Twyfelfontein for a midway stopover). This large dolomitic mountain is the highest mountain in Namibia, rearing up to over 2500m above sea-level. The mountain appears out of the distance like an enormous burning red mound. It’s unique in that it is completely surrounded by the flat plains that rise up from the coast and mark the melding between the Skeleton Coast on in the west and the Kalahari to the east. It also happens to be be the landscape that the desert elephant are most often found (despite our best efforts we didn’t see them as the primary herd had moved further north from the mountain). Around this monolith are stacks of stones that bake in the desert heat.

Starry skies and seemingly burnt rock face are the primary reason for our workshop visit, and these did not disappoint. Each night we were greeted with the most extraordinary panoply of twinkling lights in the sky - the Milky Way easy to pick out against the dark blue heavens. The only downside to chasing starry skies is of course the lack of sleep, but there was at least some downtime during the heat of the day (and it as hot! Despite being autumn we reached 40 degrees celsius on one day) to catch a quick nap and recharge before another late afternoon shoot.

Then it was suddenly cold as we made our way to coast for the final two days of shooting. I always find it bizarre leaving Brandberg behind in the sweltering heat, to suddenly see the thermometer drop precipitously as we make a beeline for the Atlantic Ocean. Within 10 minutes we went from 33 degree heat to a faint chill of 17 degrees as the fog from the ocean rolled over us. This same fog chased the coastline for the rest of the day, opening up enough for us to drive into the famous Sandwich Harbour at the edge of the Namib Desert.
The dunes here are always extraordinary. Rolling shapes and dark shadows make for incredible abstract patterns. The waters of the bay sliding from cobalt to azure, with pink pinpricks in the distance marking the flocks of flamingo at the estuary edges. We raced against the oncoming fog to be rewarded with soft light caressing the dunes as they turned a shade of pastel, with bright sunlit dunes in the distance. An extraordinary highlight to the end of a phenomenal workshop.

Of course it wasn’t over until we had a last fling at wildlife photography…in this case an outing onto the harbour waters of Walvis Bay to photograph pelicans in flight, terns in their masses, flamingoes, seals and dolphins. It was on this high that we finally were able to do the last crit session (We managed four of these through the course of the trip) while eating dinner overlooking the harbour at Walvis Bay.

Admittedly Walvis Bay is really in the centre of the country, so not technically part of Namibia’s North. It makes for an excellent ending point to the workshop though. A great place to celebrate a photographer’s birthday as well (thanks for sharing such a milestone with our small group Mike!). It’s always a little bit of an anti-climax driving back from the coast towards Windhoek and the inevitable flights home. One of the joys of photography though is the reliving of the experience through the images that were created. I’m looking forward to seeing more of these as the photographers who joined me in the desert slowly go through their images and post them on social media, print them and hang own walls, enter them into salons and generally share their experience with the world.

We’ll be heading back to Namibia’s North in 2025 to hopefully catch some more waterfalls, nights skies and perhaps even the elusive desert elephant.