Quiver Trees

You may have guessed, but posts have been a little out of order. The Quiver Tree Forest near Keetmanshoop was our first real stop after a long drive from Windhoek.

First, we arrived in the afternoon and spent an hour or two in the forest as the sun set. There were no clouds in the sky this day, but we still managed to get a lovely colour transition in the western sky as the sun set.

In disappointing news, this was the first shoot with my new 3 Legged Thing Winston tripod. Although the tripod was generally great throughout the trip, on this shoot, one of the feet came unscrewed and became lost among the grass and boulders. Similar happened to at least one other photographer durig the trip, with their much more expensive Really Right Stuff tripod. A handy reminder to regularly check your gear and make sure everything’s done up secure and tight. 

The next morning, my jet lag paiud off with a 4:00am rise to take advantage of the moonless sky just before the morning twilight. The darkness of the sky without the moon allowed us to capture the Milky Way, which was lying pretty much parallel to the horizon by this time of the night. We did some light painting of the trees, but I much prefer the photographs with the main subject silhouetted against the sky. For me, the subtle light on the other trees in this shot (from others light painting their own composition) kind of works. A happy accident.

As the sun rose, we took a short drive to the Giant’s Playground, a vast pile of dolerite rocks, with the odd quiver tree dotted around.