My wife and I travelled from our home in Centurion to Bethulie, on the banks of the Gariep dam. We slept there for one night. It was our wedding anniversary but more about that later. The following day we travelled around the Gariep dam to Philippolis via Colesberg. We stayed the night in Philippolis and went back home the next day.
The idea was to make it a photographic journey and a way to see the roads less travelled. We were in no mad rush and we stopped and explored all the little towns that looked interesting...
We covered just over 1600km over the three days and I took about 1350+ images.
I used three cameras for the trip but most of the photographs were made with one camera only, the Leica X1. The X1 is a very small camera with a fixed lens, a 36mm equivalent f2.8. The camera has a little optical viewfinder on top and about 12million pixels on a aps-c sensor. I also took my Canon 5d with but only used it a few times. The other camera was my Mamiya Zd with a 50mm shift lens for architecture which I only really used in Philippolis.
I probably bit off more than I could chew in terms of the sheer distance travelled over the over the three days. Next time I will give myself an extra day or two to recover from the driving. We experienced very hot days and one day the temperatures reached 38degrees Celsius. It is very exhausting to drive and photograph in temperatures like that, combined with early morning starts and it all becomes just too much....
I will start the series with a photograph made on the road between Colesberg and Philippolis. It was very hot and clouds were gathering on the horizon...there was hardly any traffic so it was quite safe to stand in the middle of the road. I used the little X1 for this and darkened the sky and tar road to make it more dramatic...
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
1 comment:
I like the perfect symmetry, the road, the horizon. I know it is difficult to keep the concentration when taking photos with the temperatures you mention.
robert
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