Road Trips, South Africa ~ Part One

Right, in no particular order, some of the photos from my recent travels around the drier areas of Southern Africa. We have such a beautiful and diverse land. Please bear with me as some (well, most) of these were taken from a moving vehicle. On one side, when you travel deep Free State and Northern Cape, it's pretty much flat. Then you head more eastern side towards White River and Sabie stopping by places between, it's hilly, green and lush.
 

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Morning trip, just before passing Witbank heading towards Nelspruit and White River...

 

Just some of the country side between Nelspruit and White River.

 

 

In the middle of nowhere... civilization exists, spotted this shopping center about an hour's drive from Douglas, but about an hour plus before Kimberly.

 

 

Crossing a single lane bridge about 20 minutes from the industrial farm town of Jan KempDorp.

 

A run down shoplet in Jan KempDorp.

 

Kimberly behind us, Jan KempDorp ahead, somehwere on this road.

 

 

Just one of Kimberly's attractions, spotted as you enter the town.

 

 
Between Bloemfontein and Kimberly, the road is flat... and straight... a road where lots of this can be seen...
 

 
Approaching Bloemfontein in the early morning mist.

Sunrise between Johannesburg and Bloemfontein... somewhere...

 
I am developing a greater love for my contry, South Africa. Such a diverse land, culturally and by design. South Africa, a land of many splendors I have yet to see and experience.

Open Pictorial - Artistic Imagery

Right, these are just for visual impact. Use of colours and processed in layers in PhotoShop. Rather than work with one layer to try and bring an image to life, I worked with 3.

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1. Bottom layer, made very dark with very saturated colours.

2. Middle layer, Colour tones and shadows equally balanced with an opacity of around 70-75% on average to overlay the first layer.

3. Top layer, generally allot brighter, colours enhanced and brighter than the other two layers. Opacity average 60-65%.

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Will make for great wall hangings.

Sunset...

Was a beautiful July afternoon, to the rest of South Africa, it's winter but not in Ballito... we were at the coast relaxing after a day of doing, well, very little besides a short trip to the beach and back. I looked up and saw the golden colours on the clouds so I jumped up grabbed my camera and went for a walk. The heart in the cloud is just coincidence, honestly... took a stranger to notice it.

Firstly, as I walked out the front door I noticed the rays peeking over the clouds between the houses, which are cropped out of this image as they spoiled the shot.

Then, as i walked half backwards up the slightly steep road to where it would be more open to take photos I kept stopping to take pictures. Oh yes, a trick I figured was to use my sunglasses as a lens filter. This helped to create lens flairs too.

As I got further up the "hill" along the road, I kept taking phots, still using my sunglasses over the lens.

Ah, the brisk walk is over... I reached my final destination. This small cluster of trees were great to shoot, and so photogenic. They posed wonderfully for me and never complained. Notice the compostion of the tree and location of the sun... a well done pfoto according to the pros. Okay, I did have to crop a little off the top and clone out a few stray twigs and stalks of grass as per their request.

The constant shifting of the clouds provided a great oportunity to get great sunset photos, I stepped back a bit more to get more of the sky in as well so you can see how the colours were changing as darkness loomed behind me.

Of course, while I was up there... I just had to snap up our accomodation, thanks to a friend who owns a small place there. This is Caledon Estates, Ballito. Thanks go out to my buddy, for walking out when he did (I never noticed him until afterwards) and providing perspective to the size of the place. Phase two of the estate is now beginning construction. Pity about the pylon and power cables in the background. I could clone them out but that would steal from the reality of the shot and the place. On the stroll back, I noticed this tree with new shoots, in July, in winter... so a sihouette shot came to mind. Pity I couldn't get a better shot, this is still a bit busy for my liking.

Landscapes and Seascapes... Exposure Shots

Adjusting shutter speeds can make for great images too. Thing is, these must be done at night, very late afternoon, or damn early morning... before coffee.

This image was taken just before 8pm, Ballito beach facing Umhlanga. 10 second exposure, aperture F3.5, ISO 100 with a focal length of 6.3mm.

This one again on 7 second shutter speed, aperture F4, focal length 14.6mm and ISO set to 100. The rock on the left looks like a sleeping croc, don't you think?

Early morning, sunrise. Aperture F8, exposure time 1.5 seconds, ISO 200 and focal lenth of a mere 6.6mm.

This time, 5 second exposure, aperture F8, ISO 100 (should have had it at 200 to prevent image burn on the horizon) and again 6.3mm focal lentgh (which as I've learned is due to the auto settings)

Now this was just playing around... preset my camera with a 10 second timer so I had time to get down there and pose... a few times. Shutter speed set to max for my camera at 30 seconds, aperture at F3.5 as it was actually quite dark and ISO at 200.

Now this is just before 6pm... aperture F8, exposure time of 15 seconds and ISO of 200.

Right, so I'm learning,,,

Well, over the past while, I've learned more about "depth of field", "rule of thirds" and how to crop and edit images better. I can tell you this, digital photgraphy is so much fun! I can sit for hours editing photos I've taken and making more of what is out of what was. I'm beginning to worry about my social life... okay, not really...

Take the picture below for example, yes, it looks nice but, look at it, really look at it... it's nothing fancy or exciting. Sure the colour is okay, the lighting is nice, but come on, it can be better! Time to go to work...

Right, first things first, I cut out just what I wanted. Lost the grit and dirt on the image, cropped the blighter so that I had just what I wanted from the image. Then, once that was done, adjusted the colour tones, enhanced the lighting and shadows. Once all this was done... you get what you see below... something pleasing on the eye, ready to frame and hang on a wall.

Camera settings of my Sony DSC-H10 on this one are: Exposure time (Shutter Speed): 0.0080 s (1/125) ~ ISO: 100 ~ Aperture: F3.5 ~ Focal length: 6.3mm with a manual Exposure. Unfortunately, some of the settings are still automatic and can't be changed, such as focus.

Now, this was intersting, I like catching the dew drops on things in the early hours of the morning. So, when I saw this I had to take a photo of it. Well, at a glance, it looks like typical garden nuisance, but to me, well... Time to edit...

So, the usual suspects come into play here (and this is where I'm learning a lot about Photoshop), lighting, shadows, contrast, crop and of course colour enhancement. The end result is no longer just the remains of a seed, but something interesting. "Chandelier of Droplets"

Same camera settings as the previous one...

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Now, not all photos need to be of places, plants, people, or any other thing you'd usually see in magazines or the usual book... sometimes it's nice to spot the lesser noticed and get a nice abstract image that would look good in a gallery, or corporate building. like the one below...

Note: Composition doesn't mean always having your subject in the center, 99% of the time the subject is off centre. This one made good use of "rule of thirds".

Anyway, stay tuned for another interesting episode coming soon.

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