Patterns in the sky and the ground

As a follow up to my post about Patterns in the Desert, I present images once again from the beautiful sand dunes outside of the towns Swakopmund and Walvis Bay in Namibia. Patterns, shapes and lines are all very essential tools for composition and when Mother Nature presents you with the Namibian smorgasbord you are in heaven as a landscape photographer!

One afternoon after a little visit to Walvis Bay we drive on the backside of these dunes and we happen upon these extraordinary patterns in the ground. What they are and what caused them I honestly could not say. What I can say is I had a brilliant time lining them up in my viewfinder at sunset, creating images like this one:

Click to see large size on my gallery! Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Walvis Bay Dune Patterns
© Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Later that same afternoon, the clouds felt left out so they demanded attention by creating these beautiful cloudscapes at dusk. Both of these shots were shot using a 3 stop  ND grad filter, an essential tool here as the sun sets on the other side of the dunes and the ND grad filter is necessary to even exposure and get detail in the foreground.

Click to see large size on my gallery! Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Walvis Bay Dunes at Dusk 
© Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Incidentally, I find it incredible the way a smell, a taste or a sound can be linked so strongly to the memory of capturing a photo. As I study these photos I taste “Jungle Energy Muesli Bars” in my mouth. I very distinctly remember wolfing down these energy bars at night when I loaded these raw files into my laptop and was rather pleased with the result – and the muesli bars!

Finally; these gorgeous dunes are small in comparison to the massive 400 meter tall Naukluft dunes but are still about 50 to 100 meters tall and spread out over 30 kilometres of coast between Swakopmund and Walvis Bay. Witness from above, these gorgeous dunes, neighbour to the sea.

Click to see large size on my gallery! Copyright Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Swakopmund Dunes from the air 
© Flemming Bo Jensen Photography

Amusing anecdote from this day. As I am shooting these images my friends Gudrun and Svenn are waiting in the car a few hundreds meters away. It is a rather windy and chilly day. I feel an urgent need to use the bush toilet (should it be called desert toilet here?) to relieve myself of the nice coffee from a café in Walvis Bay. I water the sand and hear intense whistling and woohoo’ing from my friends. As they are at least a few hundred meters away and it is dark I can’t really see what they are doing. So I gather they are cold and tired and want to go. I hurry (with the shooting not the peeing) and get the last few shots, it is almost pitch black anyway and I rush back to them. At which point I of course learn they were laughing and whistling at the sight of me, the camera, the tripod and the desert toilet situation. I can be rather slow at times!

14 Comments on “Patterns in the sky and the ground”

    1. Thanks very much Mark ! The landscape of Namibia is certainly very different and alien to a visitor's eyes! If you live there it is everyday life of course and people take their dogs out walking in the dunes etc!

  1. you've got to love it when nature provides something marvelous for you like this.

    the top 2 are definite stand outs there. this time i'm by myself by the look of it- with the second one being my favorite 🙂

    1. Thanks Stephen, wohoo a vote for the 2nd one! Funny phenomena, people always go for the first one 😀 It is also funny that if you show anyone more than one photo they will immediately tell you their favourite even without asking. I never really post these because I want people to tell me their favourite, rather I like to know what they like about the different shots. But it's human nature, we can't help picking a favourite presented with more than one option 🙂

    1. Thanks very much Christian! I don't mind people choosing, just find it a curious human trait. Maybe I should try that 'one picture' thing but then I have so much to tell, so much to show hehe. I think I will keep demanding people to concentrate on a lot of text AND several images 🙂

  2. Great shot Flemming love the first shot with the focus on the patterns in the sand . Have all ways wanted to get some shots of dried up creek beds etc simular to that shot but havent had a chance latly

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