As the last clouds leave the Cape, the First billowing thunder heads roll on to the other parts of Southern Africa. This is my time to leave the prison cell that is my desk and head for freedom in the mountains, the deserts and on the coastline. New goals and new aspirations call for new material and that is exactly what I’m planning. I’m finally going to Hole in the Wall and the great Drakensberg. Two of South Africa’s most prominent landscapes that are not only missing from my portfolio, but that I have never seen with my own eyes.

Hopefully La Niña will deliver some of these!

I leave this Sunday the 24th on a 5 week trip that looks roughly as follows

• 3 nights at the Storms River Mouth
• 2 nights at Kenton on Sea
• 5 nights at Hole in the wall
• 2 nights at Giants Cup in the Drakensberg
• 2 nights at Kamberg in the Drakensberg
• 5 nights at Mahai in the Drakensberg
• 1 night at Golden Gate
• 6 nights of workshops in Bloemfontein and Pretoria… can’t be all play, no work
• 5 nights at the Rhodes/Barkly mountains
• Then it’s the December holidays including
  • 3 nights at the Barkly mountains…again
  • 5 nights at the Dwesa reserve on the wild coast
• In late January I head off to the Blyde River Canyon for 4-6 nights
• 4 nights at the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park
• 4 nights in Kokerboom kloof in the Richtersveld
• 2 nights on the farm Kanaan in the Namib rand…remember in my Namib post I mentioned the book with the amazing images? All taken on Kanaan!
• 2 nights at a lodge next to Wolwedans
• 2 nights at Sossusvlei
• 1 night at Augrabies
• 2 nights rest in Pretoria
• 6 nights Sehlabathebe in Lesotho

Wilderness night skies

Apart from two more trips to the Namib Rand, those are the fixed dates in my schedule at the moment. My blog won’t come to a standstill though, I’ve got a few posts that are finished and scheduled to auto-publish. Don’t expect them all in a few weeks time though! I’ve done a 3 part tutorial on blending with luminosity masks and applying contrast using layer blending modes. These are very extensive tutorials and they will reveal my last two ‘secrets’ if you would call them that. Part 1 will publish on 1 November and the other two on sequential two month intervals (1 January and 1 March). Also to come is a review on the Canon 16-35mm f/2.8 II vs the Zeiss Distagon 18mm f/3.5, my conclusions on the 617 format as I bid my Linhof farewell, a new featured photographer and a comprehensive how-to article on the Lee graduated filter system.

Storms River Mouth

Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park

Kokerboom Kloof

Namib Rand