Country Life Article by Anita de Villiers


Country Life Article By Anita de Villiers February 2005 issue
Desertlight and the Creative Fire Picture it - the Namib, the changing light, the well-known features - but not as you'd expect to. ANITA DE VILLIERS attended a photographic workshop that enabled her to do just that. An invitation to explore one's passion for photography in a desert environment is enticing, holding the promise of journeying into undiscovered terrain and finding new sources of inspiration. The invitation was from Desertlight, a name in itself poetic enough for any travel and photography junkie to pack bags and equipment and take the long road to the Namib.
	Desertlight is the brainchild of Lydia Ellis, the culmination of a vision fed by her close bond with the Namib and her love of photography as a creative medium. During her many visits to the Namib over 30-odd years, it burnt its austere beauty into her free spirit. Then about a dozen years ago she was introduced to photography
in the obscure little town of Kamieskroon and it proved to be the catalyst for her Desertlight Photographic Workshops. At "Kamies", situated amid Namaqualand's bountiful springtimes and the bleached dunes of the West Coast, Canadian photographer Freeman Patterson and the legendary Colla Swart have for years been drawing a steady stream of photographers into what today is an esteemed school in the genre of landscape photography. Their philosophy and approach towards photography and life have been a generous and nurturing inspiration for talented people to develop their own creative voices, structuring the way they see life and the enigmatic world of nature. It was here that Lydia and her long-time friend and fellow artist, Nicole Palmer, started their photographic careers.
While they were doing battle with camera technicalities such as "f stops" and "depth of field" between the Namaqualand daisies, Willem Oets stepped into the picture. The ingredients for Lydia's eventual venture to cultivate creativity through the medium of photography in the desert had been serendipitously supplied. Only one further element was needed to translate her vision into reality: Nicole's husband Guy's calm pragmatism and extensive knowledge of the Namib that would cement the fantastic scheme. The alchemic mix was ready to be stirred and shaken and, as they say, the rest is history.
Desertlight takes photographers into two different areas of the Namib. The first four days are spent at Tolou's Lodge in the Namib Rand Nature Reserve area between Sesriem and Betta, then for the following three days the operation moves to Sesriem Campsite at the entrance to Sossusvlei in the Namib-Naukluft Park. In hindsight, this was not unlike trekking towards some mythological place where the sun fiercely creates its heat and light. But let's hasten slowly with the telling of the story, as it is done in Africa. Guy, Nicole and Willem start out by posting solid landmarks through illustrated presentations on the ecology of the region, the basics of photography and the principles of visual design. Each day starts long before sunrise so that you arrive at places with magical names like Goudkoppie, Dina Plains, Music Mountain and Gemsbok Dunes as first light is delicately painting a profusion of pastel tints into the landscapes. Spiky nara plants and gnarled camelthorn trees populate the contours of infant orange dunes, while rocky black inselbergs stand out in stark contrast against the pale ostrich-grass and sand of the vast plains.
Evening is lengthening into night by the time the photographers receive their strips of processed film and eager faces are bathed in the glare of lightboxes, viewing and comparing captured images. When each day's work is projected on a huge screen, the instructors' evaluations and supportive comments are sagacious pointers towards translating newly found knowledge and skills into visual text. As time progresses, a subtle ground-shift takes place. A camaraderie forms and banter starts entering the conversations as the group gathers under the huge canopy of darkening sky, turning cameras on the moon and each other: "Use your wide angle (lens) for that shot." "Nooo, why dangle?"
Results start showing that a keenness of eye has developed as acquaintance with the environment settles in. In keeping with the more relaxed atmosphere, the tone of the instructors' mentoring moves away from rules and technical aspects onto new ground.
Willem introduces the concept of conscious camerawork, explaining that technical skills and knowledge of artistic principles gradually form a fertile subconscious stream feeding into a photographer's artistry. With practice it becomes instinctive, allowing immersion into the creative moment, free from entanglement with technicalities. Then creative photography becomes a process of learning to look at the ordinary and the obvious and start seeing the extraordinary and the sublime, of moving from documenting a subject to interpreting its meaning and impact on your emotions.
Some photographers have reservations about this somewhat esoteric approach, initially experiencing it as a barrier. For them, Nicole's words guide the direction: "Believe that you can do it; work with a subject that has caught your attention and observe your own emotions as you work with it. Know that the process is slow and that there is no one correct way. Then relax, play, and above all, don't judge yourself."
	Keeping this in mind, you trudge into the Gemsbok Dunes, loaded with equipment. It doesn't work . . . it doesn't work . . . until a flimsy quote drifts into your mind: "The reason why angels fly is because they take themselves lightly." You shed some of the weight, fix your favourite lens on your camera and then . . . click!
The barrier crumbles and nature gracefully drops a layer before your Seeing Eye. The time has come to venture deeper into the desert. The short journey from Tolou's to Sesriem and the first afternoon's trek into Sossusvlei are more than changes of scenery. It is deleting junk mail from your mind and witnessing protective persona and masks shrink before this uncompromisingly honest and textured landscape. When the distinctive call of a black-backed jackal resonates into the dark, a welcoming fire beckons the exhausted troupe of photographers back to camp. A subtle change has settled into the rhythm.
Living the experience of Sossusvlei through words may be easier than capturing it in images. The seemingly endless expanse of the towering dunes traps quivering mirages in the Tsauchab's parched riverbed and the cracked clay basins of Hiddenvlei and Deadvlei. On the face of some dunes, the tracks of gemsbok belie the impression of this severe landscape as uninhabitable. But the wind sweeps these delicate signs of life into oblivion as the sun perseveres on its daylong journey of light, the sand colossuses reflecting its passage in hues of rose, orange, mauve, ochre, gold and ivory. This is the face of the Namib, inspiring in its physical grandeur and intimidating in its world-famous presence.
Expectations fed by hundreds of beautiful mental images of probably the most photographed desert in the world are your constant companions as you view this landscape. But it is exactly these expectations that lead you along the path of tunnel vision and that, in the end, leave you thirsting. In theory, you know that this is the death-knell of creativity and that you need to slay the dragon of your stereotypical perceptions. But all theory and intentions evaporate as the unrelenting heat and endless silence lay claim on your senses in the arena of Deadvlei.
Deadvlei, with its skeletal camelthorn trees set against the backdrop of symmetrical sienna dunes, is transformed each morning as light and shadow start hunting each other down in ever-changing triangular tones over the white, cracked-mud floor. This is the stuff that answers to every rule in the photographer's book and the perfection of Euclidean principles - a shrine to which the world's professional landscape photographers return again and again. There I stood, overwhelmed by nature and in awe of the perfect picture. Perhaps Mother Nature detected the intensity of my reverence, but as the sun won the day's battle for supremacy over Deadvlei's basin, a tree stepped into my viewfinder and started dancing . . . The dragon of preconception had been slain and the desert had invited me to the dance of light.
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