Mountains, along with the ocean are perhaps the two most prominent landscape elements on our planet. So it is a prerequisite that as a landscape photographer you need images of majestic snow capped mountain peaks in your gallery. Living in South Africa, this kind of presents a brick wall to landscape photographers. Only about 10% of our mountains reach over 3000m altitude and even those get at most ten weeks of snow in a year. The Western Cape’s mountains are nice, but getting anywhere worth shooting presents yet another brick wall – Cape Nature/sanparks. The administration managing our parks gives photographers virtually no opportunity to be in the ideal place at ideal times. Even if you could organise this, the Cape gets about 10-20 days of snow in a year and it only falls on the high peaks. Our best mountains are the famous amphitheatre and peaks of the Northern Drakensberge on the Border of Kwa-Zulu Natal and Lesotho, but these are also run by park administration that have their hands full with tourists and don’t want photographers going about the park as they please. The other thing is that everyone has photographed these mountains, and shooting them would just be conforming to a cliché.

Luckily, I have an opportunity that few other have. My mom grew up in the Southern Drakensberge that border with Lesotho in the Eastern Cape and Eastern Free State. Although, not as beautiful and majestic as the Great Dakensberge, it is virtually untouched by tourism, privately owned and access to the best parts are highly restricted as it’s all deep into farmers’ land. Three of my mom’s siblings are farmers in the area, and like a typical farmers community everyone knows everyone, so through my uncle, I could get access to go anywhere I wanted.

My original plan was to go in early January when the summer storms are still in full swing, but a few things cut that trip short and after 5 days I had to go back home. I never really got into the mountains in those 5 days, but I witnessed one very very scary/awesome storm and got the summer version for a planned seasonscape of my favourite lone tree.

Foreboding Skies ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 22mm, ISO50, f/16, 8s, 0.9 soft grad

Touch Down ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 35mm, ISO100, f/9, 13s, circular polarizer

Autumn Luminosity ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 25mm, ISO100, f/11, 1/15s, Circular Polarizer

Stormberg at Peace ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 25mm, ISO100, f/13, 1/10s, circular polarizer

I finally got back in early March with the plan to stay for three weeks. My planning started with finding out from the older farmers in the areas what the most beautiful places were. ( apart from each farmer thinking his farm is the prettiest ) It quickly became very apparent that the best places were the cliffs of the plateau ridge for the roughly 100km between the towns of Indwe and Elliot. On this whole stretch, the easiest way to get to the ridge is either the Otto du Plessis or Barkly pass, but the latter isn’t an option because it’s a very busy road. I was staying about 40km/45minutes from where the other pass goes over the plateau ridge so it’s quite an unpleasant drive to do before sunrise. The other option was to get to the ridge from my uncle’s farm which I initially thought would be the easiest as it’s only about 5km in a straight line, but after my cousin took me for a bike trip along the whole plateau ridge it became very obvious that I would probably get lost and die in the twisting valleys.

The ideal would be to spend the night on the meadows above the cliffs, but you needed a proper 4×4 to get there and you can’t camp in a tent because of daily thundershowers. So the only way for me to shoot it at twilight would be by foot. I decided that I would just do a morning hike of the best places to get to know them, check potential compositions, difficulty of the hike etc. So for the first few mornings I got up just after sunrise, drove to the best spot on the road and continued by foot. For someone who grew up at the coast and hasn’t participated in sport since school, climbing these slopes with a camera bag loaded with two bodies, tripod, accessories and 4l of water was quite a shock, but I got quite fit within the 3 weeks I was there! After exploring all the areas I wanted to shoot, I realized that I needed to spend one morning just studying the light, which I did, so after 9 days there, I pretty much hadn’t done a single proper shoot of the places I wanted to, except for some sunset shoots, but the sun sets behind the plateau ridge and I want the cliffs in light so shooting sunset wasn’t really an option. For 3 mornings, I got up at 3am, drove the +- 40km to the plateau ridge, walked my carefully marked path to my spot in total darkness using a headlamp and a maglite. Following fences and cattle trails not to get lost. One morning was completely covered in mist and the other two there wasn’t a single cloud! I quickly started to realize that I was there at the completely wrong time of the year in terms of weather.  After about 14 days there I concluded that I needed a much better knowledge of the mountain’s weather system, the areas I wanted to shoot, that I needed to be there around the summer solstice, that I need a decent 4×4 and that I need to spend much more time there. I earned a lot of respect for the likes of Marc Adamus, Vincent Favre and Lawrence Brennon – the big mountain photographers.

All in all I was disappointed with the trip ( it cost me about 15 tanks of fuel), but it wasn’t for nothing. I plan to return when the snow falls and then again around summer solstice. I already know what I want to shoot and exactly how to get there. So it should hopefully be easier next time.

More Ster ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 16mm, ISO100, f/16, 1/50s (highlight), 1/13s (sky), 1/3s (foreground)

Some highlights from two weeks in the mountains

One of my cousins took me up to their farms on the ridge and we got there just as one monster of a storm was rolling in. Unluckily the necessary shutter speeds didn’t allow me an opportunity to capture any strikes, but they were falling left, right and centre. We were about 500 meters from the car when the first strike hit the cliffs we were standing on. The camp fences run a few meters from the drop-off and each time the lightning strikes it, the whole fence glows purple/blue as the current runs along it. Impressive, but each time it happens a current of fear runs along your spine. Waiting a few seconds after a strike, we quickly climbed through the fence and had to run the 500meters to the car in lashing hail.

Summer Afternoon ~ 5D II, 16-35 II @ 16mm, ISO100, f/16, 1/10s, 0.6 hard grad

The landscape above and the one below are only a few kilometres apart, but you can see the dramatic difference in climate between the sides of the plateau that face the coast and the one that faces inland. This is pretty much the only decent composition I could find that faces into the sunset, but you need a high clearance vehicle to get here and I want to return when the sun sets exactly at the end of the valley. This place is ideal for capturing an electric storm around twilight so I will definitely return.

Sunset Showers ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 16mm, ISO100, f/16, 1/13s (highlight), 1/3s (sky), 1.3s (foreground)

The most captivating and unique landscape in this mountain range is the sandstone spires between Elliot and Barkly East. The bigger ones are on the plateau ridge above Elliot, known as “The Gaurdians”, but there is another group a few kilometers above the ridge that can be clearly seen from the road. I first saw and captured them in december of 2008 and I’ve been obsessed with the place ever since. I got permission to enter the farm and shot 4 sunsets there in my 3 week trip, but I never really got the weater I was looking for. This place is covered in snow in July and I can’t wait to go back then.The landscape looks identical to that of Golden Gate NP, but the buttresses are groups of thinner spires rather than massive cliff faces.

a Friendly notice…this area is terrorized with farm murders and cattle theft, so the farmers don’t take kindly to trespassers. For your own safety, do not enter the farms without permission from the owner.

Summer Solstice -the shot from 21 December 2008

Spires of the Dragon ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 16mm, ISO100, f/16, 1/13s, circular polarizer, foreground fill with reflector

Spires of the Dragon II ~ 5D II, 16-35mm II @ 16mm, ISO100, f/18, 1/13s, circular polarizer, foreground fill with reflector, 5 exposures combined to simulate long exposure

I’m stopping there again for two days next week…maybe just maybe  I get lucky with the light, otherwise I’m heading back when the first snow falls!