Sunday to Friday Express. It was the name painted on the side the tour bus. The bus driver ironically seemed oblivious to the sign since, although it was Saturday, we were crossing Namibia’s vast gravel plains on route to Skeleton Coast National Park.
Starring out the window felt somewhat fruitless as all I could see was kilometre after kilometre of desolate plains. To pass the time I pulled out my camera and reviewed the last week’s worth of photographs. All I needed was one good shot for the assignment. Although I had over three hundred photographs of sand dunes, lizards and grass, none felt quite right.
The bus came abruptly to a halt. My first thought was that the bus driver had realised it was Saturday since we did not appear to have arrived anywhere in particular. As I stepped out the bus a wall of dense, hot air engulfed me. I looked around me, squinting in the bright desert light, and thought, ‘Great, more gravel’. Far in the distance I could see the edge of the northern dune sea. That was where we were heading. The Sunday to Friday Express, it seemed, would take us no further.
The steady, rhythmic crunching of stones beneath hiking boots was almost hypnotic. Half an hour later with the dunes seemingly no closer I stopped to catch my breath. Sunblock mingled with sweat dripping down my forehead making my eyes sting. As I lifted my shirt the wipe the moisture from my face, I noticed a small dead shrub out of the corner of my eye. This meagre, bare shrub was the only sign of plant life in sight. I bent to tie my bootlace while thinking about how one lone plant could have come to grow there at all. From my crouched position, I looked up once more at my shrub. It dawned on me suddenly that this was the shot. In the distance the dunes rose high above the gravel plains. My shrub was small yet strong against this backdrop. The colours appeared almost bleached contrasting the dark near black of my shrub whose branches mingled with their own shadows such that you could hardly tell which was which.
I lay down on the hard gravel and focussed my camera. The ground was searing hot and each sharp stone was like a tiny poker branding those exposed parts of my skin. Grimacing I took the shot. I knew I had it right before I even looked down at my camera’s review screen. This was Namibia in a single frame: harsh yet resilient and heartbreakingly beautiful. In that moment I knew I was going to need a bigger camera…
Starring out the window felt somewhat fruitless as all I could see was kilometre after kilometre of desolate plains. To pass the time I pulled out my camera and reviewed the last week’s worth of photographs. All I needed was one good shot for the assignment. Although I had over three hundred photographs of sand dunes, lizards and grass, none felt quite right.
The bus came abruptly to a halt. My first thought was that the bus driver had realised it was Saturday since we did not appear to have arrived anywhere in particular. As I stepped out the bus a wall of dense, hot air engulfed me. I looked around me, squinting in the bright desert light, and thought, ‘Great, more gravel’. Far in the distance I could see the edge of the northern dune sea. That was where we were heading. The Sunday to Friday Express, it seemed, would take us no further.
The steady, rhythmic crunching of stones beneath hiking boots was almost hypnotic. Half an hour later with the dunes seemingly no closer I stopped to catch my breath. Sunblock mingled with sweat dripping down my forehead making my eyes sting. As I lifted my shirt the wipe the moisture from my face, I noticed a small dead shrub out of the corner of my eye. This meagre, bare shrub was the only sign of plant life in sight. I bent to tie my bootlace while thinking about how one lone plant could have come to grow there at all. From my crouched position, I looked up once more at my shrub. It dawned on me suddenly that this was the shot. In the distance the dunes rose high above the gravel plains. My shrub was small yet strong against this backdrop. The colours appeared almost bleached contrasting the dark near black of my shrub whose branches mingled with their own shadows such that you could hardly tell which was which.
I lay down on the hard gravel and focussed my camera. The ground was searing hot and each sharp stone was like a tiny poker branding those exposed parts of my skin. Grimacing I took the shot. I knew I had it right before I even looked down at my camera’s review screen. This was Namibia in a single frame: harsh yet resilient and heartbreakingly beautiful. In that moment I knew I was going to need a bigger camera…
