Photographing Lesotho

Mountain Vistas, stormy skies, colourful fields of flowers; purple, pink and white cosmos, waves of yellow delosperma blanketing the edges of gorges, cloud formations like fleets of long masted ships sailing through the skies, stoic faced herdsmen wrapped in colourful blankets, waving yellow grasses catching the cold air whipping through the mountain valleys, curls of smoke drifting lazily from stone chimneys and through the thick thatch of grass woven roofs. This is Lesotho, this is the Mountain Kingdom. 

Lesotho is a landlocked country within the confines of South Africa at the southernmost end of the African continent. The country has a population of around 2.4 million people within it’s 30,355 square kilometres. This makes it roughly the size of Belgium with a population a sixth of its people. This means there’s a whole lot of mountainous land that is essentially empty. Only about 10 percent of the population lives in and around the Capital Maseru. Then there are strings of small villages in the lower lying areas where it is both warmer in winter as well as having more fertile ground for crops to grow. The primary reason that that people seem to be concentrated in these pockets in simply that the vast majority of the country is inhospitably mountainous. 

For a landscape photographer this is of course near nirvana. It means there are parts of the country that, although ostensibly populated, are still very much open and people-less. Lesotho is a wild space still as a result. To be sure there is the evidence of people; fields terraced into mountainsides, the cling-clang sound of a cattle or sheep bell drifting over a ravine, the quiet burble that echoes from the bottom of a valley when a village sits there. Lesotho is not an empty wasteland void of people. Rather it is a small country that seems partially paused in a timeworn to a different era. 

Visual drama is what the country excels at though. Tall grassy mountains with deep sheer cliffs. Roaring waterfalls that plummet into deep gorges. Sunsets and rises that seem like volcanic explosions of light against the basalt capped peaks. Towering cumulus clouds, bruised purple with veins of dark grey that metastasise into violent nimbus that pummel the slopes with heavy rain and golf-ball sized hail. Whether you are photographing the grand vistas of the yawning gorges and tall peaks, or concentrating on the minutia of small flowers and the patterns found in lichen encrusted rock, you will find a kaleidoscope of colour and pattern too explore. 

The still water of a tarn reflecting the early morning alpine glow off the Devil's Knuckles in the background

The Nature’s Light ‘Exploring the Mountain Kingdom’ is a photographic workshop that concentrates on two phenomenal photographic locations; Sethlabathebe National Park in the east of the country and Semonkong and it’s incredible waterfall Maletsunyane Falls, in the centre of the country. 

Sethlabathebe, meaning ‘shield of the plateau’ in Sesotho, sits on the edge of the Drakensberg escarpment, overlooking South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province. It was proclaimed in May 1970 as a National Park by Lesotho’s first Prime Minister, Leabua Jonathan. It is said that he had a great love for the area, and the remnants of the original lodge - Jonathan’s Lodge, named after him - are still standing near the main attraction of the park; the field of sandstone formations that litter the plateau between tarns of ice-cold water. This is the reason Sethlabathebe should be on every landscape photographer’s bucket list - or at least those who live in Southern Africa at the very least. The sandstone formations form fantastic domes and pillars, overhangs and scallops which glow orange and red as the morning’s first light strikes them. The backdrop are the ‘Devil’s Knuckles’; a trio of tall peaks on the Drakensberg Escarpment that reflect perfectly in the water-filled tarns of the Sethlabathebe plateau. 

A photographer on a Nature's Light workshop capturing the early morning drama from a rocky outlook

The end of summer, which is my favourite time to visit Sethlabathebe, is truly a fantastic time to see the park as the sky is often filled with enormous clouds that burn amber and gold in the late afternoon. Scudding clouds light up pink and purple in the morning before the sun has risen enough for them to become the puffs of white that caress the slopes and gullies heading up the Devil’s Knuckles or Baroa ba baroa (“the three bushmen” in  Sesotho). We camp near the edge of the main feature of the Park, the famous sandstone formations along with the remnants of the Basotho dwellings and walls that were built into the rock face and under the arches. Deep tarns of water reflect the mountains perfectly, especially in the morning as the escarpment catches the first rays of amber light and come alive with alpine glow. 

Summer storm clouds in the background of a field of cosmos flowers

Sethlabathebe does now have a lodge near the entrance to the park, but we still prefer to rough camp near the site of the old ‘Jonathan’s Lodge’. This gives easy access to the sandstone formation when the light is good, as well offering the opportunity to find compositions at night when the Milky Way is spinning through the sky above. Regardless of what time of year you visit the Park though, there is always something to photograph. Simply wandering between the outcrops of rock and pondering the old stone walls is enough of a reason to visit this awesome location. 

From Sethlabathebe we set out on the long drive west towards Semonkong village, high in the Malutis towards the centre of the country. Travel has been made significantly easier with the completion of the tar road between Sethlabathebe and Qacha’s Nek. In the past this journey was slow and arduous, and now only takes about 3 hours. The older tar road then follows the course of the Senqu River before crossing it and climbing the almost impossibly steep pass that flanks the summit of Thaba Nts’o at 2904m. The road winds some 600m below the peak’s top, still leaving the vehicle’s seemingly gasping of breath as they round out and start the shallow descent to Semonkong village.

Elizabeth Masetho, the local custodian of blanket lore and history in the village of Semonkong

The village lies at the head of the Maletsunyane Gorge, a massive rift that suddenly plunges some 200m at it’s head, and continues to cut down a further 500m over a short distance before the gorge opens out into deep valleys that lead towards the Senqu River in the south. The Maletsunyane Falls are one of the highest single drop waterfalls in Africa, and are certainly one of the most beautiful. An eyrie of a vantage point overlooks the gorge and is often filled with mist in the early mornings, giving Semonkong it’s name; ‘the smoke that thunders’. A near constant rumble emanates from the waterfall as the water rushes and tumbles over it’s lip. The impressive waterfall is also home to the Guinness World record holder of the world’s longest commercially operated abseil. Semonkong Lodge, where we stay, operate and maintain this 204m abseiling route that skirts the very edge of the thundering water. 

The Gorge is both awe-inspiringly impressive as well as beautiful and we make sure to explore it along both sides in order to photograph it’s deep valley and the river snaking it’s way through the bottom of it to join the fast flowing Senqu before it reaches South Africa to become the Orange River, the longest river south of the Zambezi at roughly 2,432 from its source in the Drakensberg to the mouth of the river at Alexander Bay. 

The ‘Exploring the Mountain Kingdom’ photographic workshop is a 6 night workshop split equally between Sethlabathebe in the east and Semonkong in the centre of Lesotho. Nature’s Light can provide a comfortable mobile camping experience in individual tents for the first half of the workshop. The latter half of the workshop is spent in the stone buildings on the edge of the Maletsunyane River; Semonkong Lodge, with it’s comfortable rooms and welcoming restaurant. 

This is a phenomenal photographic experience where you are sure to capture unique images in a truly enchanting location. If you are seeking spaces away from the maddening crowd, Lesotho is absolutely a country worth exploring!