NAMIBIA

Namibia. An abstract, almost alien landscape shaped by the forces of nature and time into one of the most beautiful and photogenic places in the world. Home to the largest dunes in the world, glowing red in the rising sun, clay pans with the black skeletons of long dead trees. Namibia is a landscape of space, one of the least populated countries on the planet with vast areas of remote wilderness. A place where awe at nature and the effects of time constantly surround you. These are landscapes that move our soul, the kind of scenes that landscape photographers dream of capturing

For this workshop we want to cover the absolute best of Namibia and create a diverse tour that shows you some of this country’s most iconic spots as well as some lesser known jewels. From the awe inspiring desert landscapes where we’ll spend four days amongst the stunning dunes of Sossusvlei to the atmospheric Kolmanskop, where the desert sands fill up an abandoned mining town, we’ll share with you the landscapes that make Namibia a photographers paradise. You’ll capture the stunning abstract shapes of the desert from the air as we’ve included a sunrise or sunset helicopter flight above the dunes of Sossusvlei, and we’ll also spend three nights in Damaraland where we’ll track desert elephants in the beautiful Huab river valley, home to ancient acacia trees that thrive in the ephemeral river bed. The Huab is also home to giraffe, oryx and countless other wildlife and provides stunning landscape back-drops for animal-in-the-landscape photos.

As usual with my Namibia workshops, I’m delighted to be partnering with Hougaard Malan, one of South Africa’s finest photographers and experienced Namibia photography guides, along with GoGravel, a leading Namibia photography and travel agency, for this really special trip. With more than a decade’s experience of photographing and leading tours here they’ll be guiding us as we visit Namibia’s most stunning landscapes.

The extreme Namibian heat starts fading during April and by late May and early June the climate is cooler with longer nights and ideal conditions for photography. 

This tour is limited to 10 participants with 3 guides, and like all my workshops is designed to ensure that you can focus on photography while we take care of everything else. A strong focus on all our workshops is on the quality of experience. Our tours are designed to ensure that you can focus on photography while we take care of everything else. On this tour we stay in some of Namibia’s most beautiful desert lodges, where the food and the stay add another level to the photographic experience, But of course you come for the photography, and so the tour is structured to maximize your opportunities to get great images whilst improving your skills as a photographer. We want you to go home having had the best experience possible, created memories that you’ll keep forever, and of course captured images that you’ll be proud of for years and years to come.

PRICE    

$16,990 Price for single room occupancy throughout the tour

$14,990 Price per person for sharing a room throughout the tour. Dependent on there being someone else also willing to share.

GROUP SIZE

10

EXPERIENCE

Amateur, enthusiast and semi-pro photographers.  

PHYSICAL DIFFICULTY

Easy, although participants should be prepared to deal with heat

INCLUDED IN THE PRICE

Ground transport for the entire duration of the tour

All tourism taxes and park entry fees

All meals including drinks

Maximum Guide to client ratio of 1:4

All accommodation/lodging costs.

60-min Helicopter Flight at Sossusvlei

Game drives in the Huab Valley

Flight from Windhoek to Luderitz

Access to Kolmanskopp mining town out of hours (sunrise and sunset)

Continuous assistance with your photography and image processing by the guides

The services of a highly experienced local guide and drivers

Highly experienced tour leaders with great knowledge and experience of landscape photography

NOT INCLUDED IN THE PRICE

Airfare to and from Namibia

Snacks and drinks between meals

Credit Card surcharges

Travel Insurance

ITINERARY BREAKDOWN

Arrival in WINDHOEK | | 26 May | 1 Night

Upon arrival at Windhoek airport, you will be received at the airport by a driver with a name sign and transferred to our comfortable accommodation where we’ll have the welcome briefing and our first group dinner.

Accommodation: Windhoek Luxury Suites

LUDERITZ/KOLMANSKOP | 27-29 MAY | 2 Nights

On the second morning, we’ll have breakfast and then head to the airport to catch our chartered flight to Luderitz, our base to explore the iconic deserted town of Kolmanskop. Flying here saves us almost 10 hours of driving, which in turn means everyone arrives at our hotel much more refreshed and ready to go out shooting than if we’d spent the whole day crossing hundreds of kilometers in a car.

Kolmanskop is a magical place with so much photographic potential that we’ll make sure we spend at least 3 sessions here. We’ll also have a special permit which allows us to stay late after usual opening times, and arrive before sunrise, again, outside of regular opening times.

Hougaard and Jandre have photographed Kolmannskop hundreds of times and I’ve had over a dozen visits myself, so between us we have a vast knowledge of how to best photograph this place. With its 40 buildings and hundreds of rooms, it can be a little daunting, so on our first afternoon there we’ll walk you around the site, showing you the different locations and compositions to give you a good idea of how to go about getting the best images from this place. That first evening you’ll leave Kolmanskop with multiple images before we head for dinner in town.

The next morning we’ll be up early to get to Kolmanskop well before sunrise in order to get the pre-dawn glow on the walls of the buildings. This will be a very structured, ordered shoot to ensure everyone gets the shots they want, before people head off on their own to explore the town and find some of the compositions we showed on the previous evening. We’ll head back to the hotel for breakfast and a break from the heat before heading back again in the afternoon for a completely “free” session in the town. We find this session is when people finally “get” Kolmanskop. By now you’ll have discovered compositions you like that you won’t have had chance to shoot in the previous sessions, and you’ll have learned all the compositional tools you need to create portfolio images that you’re really proud of. You’ll also be able to explore some of the rooms and buildings you’ve not yet had time to see…there really are an infinite number of compositions to shoot here.

The final morning will be an optional return to the town for people who don’t feel like that got the dawn glow images the previous morning, but for those that did, there’s an option to have lie in and breakfast before we hit the road to the desert.

Accommodation: Alte Villa, Lüderitz

Sossusvlei | 29 may - 2 June | 4 Nights

After breakfast we’ll drive to our beautiful lodge in Sossusvlei.. Our lodge is located inside the outer gate of the park and next to the inner gate which allows us to access the park an hour before sunrise and leave an hour after, meaning we’ll be in the park and on location in plenty of time to find our compositions and wait for the light, and at the end of the day when the large groups who come here during the day have all left, we’ll be able to stay and wait for the best light to create fascinating intimate landscapes and abstracts in one of the world's most photogenic landscapes and there are endless shooting options.

Our four day stay in this amazing lodge will be the highlight of the tour, and will give us plenty of time to ensure that you get the best possible photographic return on our time here. On various sessions here we’ll split into two smaller groups with one group taking to the air for a sunrise or sunset helicopter shoot above the dunes, while the other head to the iconic trees of Deadvlei or the fascinating lines of the dune spines. We’ll rotate the groups to ensure that during our stay we will shoot at least one sunrise and one sunset in Deadvlei as well as the iconic towering dune spines at both sunrise and sunset and everyone will get a sunrise or sunset helicopter flight above the desert, an absolutely unforgettable experience where you’ll be able to capture the abstract forms of the dunes from above. On top of this we’ll also spend some time scouting for Oryx to add scale to this immense landscape.

Again, Hougaard and Jande have a decade of experience photographing this place, and I’ve been to Sossusvlei over 20 times over the last 5 years, and we’ll be on hand to share all of our knowledge of the compositions in Deadvlei and Sossusvlei, ensuring you come away with multiple portfolio images. It is one of the most diverse photogenic landscapes in the world, and each year we discover new compositions that we’ll share with you, as well as showing you how we “see” compositions in this vast landscape.

Our itinerary here is flexible as we’ll decide which days we visit Deadvlei or shoot dune spines depending on the weather, and organising around the helicopter flights, which will take place over multiple sessions.

Accommodation: Dead Valley Lodge

Swakopmund | 2- 4 June | 2 NightS

We’ll have a final breakfast and then head north back to Swakopmund, which will take us around 6 hours.

While we’re here we’ll also have the chance to focus on the famous micro-wildlife of Dorob National Park. There are two animals in particular that are as photogenic as the famous red-eyed tree frog - Palmato's Gecko and Peringuey's Adder. The first has translucent skin, oversized eyes and a beautiful pastel colour palette that makes for stunning photos. The second burrows under the sand to reveal only its eyes in one of nature's most astonishing shows of camouflage. We'll be doing a privately guided trip with an expert guide to photograph these elusive animals.

We’ll also have time here to photograph the flamingos and pelicans of Walvis Bay, as well as do some drone photography (the only opportunity on the trip as drones are prohibited in all the other locations) owe the salt works, which create abstract blocks of colour,

Accommodation: The Delight, Swakopmund

HUAB VALLEY | 4 - 7 June | 3 NIGHTS

From Swakopmund, we drive to the Huab Valley, where we will spend two nights at the beautiful Doro Nawas Wilderness lodge. The area boasts dramatic landscapes, including rugged sandstone formations and the beautiful, semi-arid environment of Damaraland.

Our primary focus here will be the herds of desert elephants that call the Huab valley home. The elephants wander the landscape here, usually feeding from the trees in the dried river valley, which creates wonderful photographic opportunities of them in the dappled light beneath the trees. We spend four or five drives in looking for the elephants and following them at a safe distance, observing and capturing the herd while hoping for some magical African light. It’s a wonderful experience, and in our opinion one of the best places to capture elephant images in southern Africa.

Accommodation: Doro Nawas Wilderness Lodge

DEPARTURE DAY | 7 JUNE

After a breakfast on the final morning we’ll hit the road back to Windhoek, which is a drive of approximately 6 hours. You can choose to fly out that evening as the Windhoek - Frankfurt flights usually depart around 6pm - 8pm but if you choose to stay an extra night in Windhoek and fly out the next day, let us know and we’ll arrange that for you.

WHAT WE DO (AND WHAT WE WANT YOU TO GET FROM THIS WORKSHOP)

Our aim is to take you to beautiful locations and give you every opportunity to get great images while improving your technique over the course of the workshop.  We direct out time to being outdoors and we limit the number of participants on our workshop to just ten which gives us plenty of time with everyone in the field, meaning either myself, Hougaard or Jandre will be close at hand to give you any advice or help you need, from composition to whether to use a filter. From the beginning of your time with us we can identify your photographic level and what you’d like to focus on, and then tailor the sessions accordingly.  

We carefully select the dates of our workshops to try and make sure we are in each location at the best time of year.  In Namibia, May and June means cooler temperatures and a respite from the searing desert heat, as well as earlier sunsets and later sunrises, which gives us a little more time to rest at night.

2028 will be Hougaard’s 18th year running photo tours to Namibia and my 8th, and the recipe is constantly being fine-tuned to ensure that guests have the best possible experience. Every single restaurant, lodge and shoot is meticulously planned on the back of nearly a decade of experience.

Finally, we want to share with you our passion for nature and landscape photography in this incredible place. Travelling in such small groups means we can quickly build a great learning environment where people feel comfortable together and at ease with asking questions and making the absolute most of the trip. We aim to make your experience here in the beautiful landscapes of Namibia a memorable one and a trip from which, as well as getting some great images from amazing locations, you’ll also go home having had a true adventure with great company in a very special place.

 Is Namibia Safe? 
Our guides have travelled Namibia extensively and never encountered any problems. The only thing to be wary of is small amounts of cash that might go missing from your room if you leave it lying around. 

Do I need a VISA to enter Namibia?
Most counties now need to apply for a Visa on Arrival in Namibia. This process can be done online 90 days before your trip, or you can do it on arrival at the airport. We’ll send details out to clients closer to the time, but a quick Google search will let you know whether you need to apply for one or not.

Will I have cellphone reception?
You will have good cellphone reception at Swakopmund, Sossusvlei and Luderitz for calling/texting. 

Will I have Internet access?
There will be WIFI of various speeds and standards at the different hotels. Before and during the trip we will keep you diligently informed of what to expect. If you’d like a sim card for the local cellphone network, we will help you organise that.

What about medicines, diseases and vaccinations?
We will not be visiting any Malaria risk areas, but we advise you consult with your doctor for a professional opinion. We recommend that you take the basic medical supplies like painkillers, antihistamine, insect repellant, disinfectant cream and plasters. Sun tan lotion and lip balm are crucial in the hot and dry environment.

Will there be fresh water available?
The tap water is drinkable at all destinations, but it is safer to drink bottled water as this might avoid a disagreement between your stomach and the local water supply. There will be bottled water available everywhere.

Will I be able to purchase snacks?
We will stop at grocers and cafés on a regular basis so everyone can stock up on drinks and snacks.

What food can I expect?
Namibia’s cuisine is primarily of British influence with a slight German element.
All our destinations serve a hot English breakfast and it usually accompanied by breads, cold meats, fruits, yoghurt and cereal. Most places have an a la carte lunch menu offering sandwiches, salads, burgers etc. Dinners will mostly be three courses, consisting of a salad or soup starter, a meat main course served with a starch and vegetables, followed by a sweet dessert.

What about allergies or dietary preferences?
Most of the lodges are prepared to handle basic allergies and dietary preferences like vegetarian meals. If you have a very rare allergy, please inform us so that we can make the necessary preparations.

Are there any luggage restrictions?
Not really, but please pack considerately. One large suitcase or bag, a large camera bag and tripod is the norm. Most lodges offer laundry services, so you don’t need to pack a fresh set of clothes for every day.

Do I need to bring spending money along?
Although most of your expenses are included, you will need some cash to buy snacks, drinks and souvenirs. You can use Namibian dollars or South African Rands and it is very unlikely that you’ll need more than 10 Euro per day.
Tipping
It is customary in Namibia to tip porters and guides at lodges. You can budget about USD100 for these tips

Do I need a laptop?
A laptop isn’t an absolute must. If you want to edit your images while you’re on the go and receive advice from Andy and Hougaard about post processing techniques, then you’re welcome to bring one with you. The workshops is crammed pretty full and when we’re not out shooting we strongly advise people to rest in order to avoid burnout later in the tour. Because of this, processing isn’t an official part of this workshop, but later in the tour when we’re in Sossusviel there will be a chance to work on your images.

 A dSLR or mirrorless camera

The criteria for the kind of work we’ll be doing is a camera that can be operated completely manually to ensure we get the best exposure with interchangeable lenses allowing us to cover a range of focal lengths

Lenses

You need to cover a focal range of 16-400mm, or 10-300mm with APSC. In Kolmanskopp and ultra wide zoom (16-35mm or 10-24mm with APSC) is essential. For the dunes and the elephants, a 100-400mm is ideal, and for the trees in Deadvlei a 70-200mm will be useful. For the helicopter aerials the best lens is a mid range zoom (24-70mm or 16-55mm on APS-C)

Filters

Graduated filters aren’t a necessity, but if you own a set, you can bring it along.
A circular polarizer, especially for your 70-200mm/100-400mm will help a lot. Make sure you have one in your bag that fits your wide angle and telephoto lenses.

Cleaning

Namibia is a very dusty and sandy place, so expect to clean all your lenses daily. Bring enough cleaning liquid and cloths. The best tool for getting sand off camera gear is a paintbrush.

Tripod

It is obvious that you need a tripod for a landscape photography workshop, but this is an area that a lot of people neglect. If you do not own a high quality tripod, please enquire about renting one from us. This also saves you the effort of having to fly with a tripod. 

Backpack
We will be doing a lot of walking with camera gear, so it is critical that you have a comfortable backpack that can take your camera gear, a bottle of water and a warm layer of clothing. 

 ANDY MUMFORD is a Lisbon based professional landscape and travel photographer. Andy grew up in the UK loving nature and travel and took up landscape photography over fifteen years ago. Since then he has travelled extensively photographing all over the world and his photography and articles have featured in publications and books worldwide. He is a passionate photographer teacher and has been leading both group and one-to-one workshops for over five years.

He is a Fuji X Photographer and a brand ambassador for Fujifilm in Portugal, although he also has extensive experience with Nikon and Canon cameras.

.

Hougaard Malan is an award winning South African photographer who has been guiding and organising photo tours to Nambia for a decade. He has taken people from every corner of the planet to every corner of Namibia. His own photos of Namibia have won him awards like the 2016 International Landscape Photograph of the Year and his clients have also won numerous awards with the photos captured on his tours. All the images on this page were captured by Hougaard.

Hougaard believes the essence of a landscape photograph is allowing the viewer to experience that place without ever being there. When the light, clouds and land combine to produce scenes so beautiful that they etch a profound place in viewers’ memories, and witnessing such moments unfold over earth’s most beautiful landscapes is, for me, one of the highlights of living.

Hougaard’s work has been published in countless media all over the world, from books and magazines to calendars and coffee table books by the likes of National Geographic. Licensing and commission clients include global and local corporates like Samsung, Toyota, SAB Inbev, FNB, Standard Bank and Europcar.

www.hougaardmalan.com

Jandre Germishuizen based in Namibia backed up by over 10 years of photography travel and tours in the country. Jandre studied nature conservation and guiding in South Africa and soon started leading groups all over Namibia. He is currently a full-time photography guide specialising in wildlife, accompanying some of the world’s greatest photographers like National Geographic photographer Art Wolfe and leading wildlife photographer Isak Pretorius through Namibia. Jandre has an incredible and expansive knowledge of the landscapes, wildlife, geology, history and nature of southern Africa which he is happy to share and use to help his clients both capture and understand this beautiful country better.

www.jandrephotos.com

 REGISTRATION

To secure your reservation a deposit of $3500 is required at the time of booking. Please complete the form below for more information, and check our terms & conditions linked below