Hiding a well
Posted on September 26th, 2010
“One is a little bit alone in the desert. One is also alone among others.”
- Antoine de Saint Exupéry
The desert can be timeless, like staring at eternity. Escape into Landscapes. I was looking for a specific file but ended up lost for hours in my Namibia 2009 raw files. A perfect escape on a grey day on a grey street in a grey city where the world was spinning too fast. This raw file caught my eye asking to be shown:
I love when Mother Nature puts all talk of megapixels, bit depth, dynamic range, hdr and tech crap to shame, wrestling her muscles daring us to try and capture her! The scene is dusk light at the Moon (I named it Mars) landscape outside of Swakopmund, Namibia. The image only a faint reminder of Mother Nature, the dynamic range is ungraspable, the colours uncatchable.
…Escape into a moment of pure eternity on another world.
PS. The title is another Antoine de Saint Exupéry: “What makes the desert beautiful is that it hides, somewhere, a well”. It is not the only beauty of the desert though.
I see Olympus Mons!
Agree, and that is clearly Valley Marineris! In Swakop it is nicknamed the 'Moon landscape' but I instantly said "no, that is Mars". I trust they have renamed it.
Well if they don't, they will after Further and Further
Indeed
Wowzers man ! My type of scenery – arid, eroded and basically just some where frikken harsh. I like the promise of 'hope' in the distance with the tiny mountain. If anything the processing on the sky graduation is too harsh or dark in the top right of the frame (at web size anyway).
cheers,
tone
Thanks Tony, yes I did think this would be your type of scenery as well! The web image sucks, 8 bit jpeg crushes the extreme graduation of the dusk colours. And I did darken the sky a lot, I wanted it to go completely black (it was already dark from the GND filter). I wish I had a few stars in here, oh next time in Namibia I shall have my own vehicle and capture so many stars. Thanks mate.
Mars looks awesome.
Even though it looks like there is nothing out there, there is probably life everywhere out there.
A real beauty for the Gallery.
Thanks very much Thomas. I think I shall add this to my fine art collection. And you're right, there is plenty life in the desert if you know where to look. Lots of geckos, snakes, spiders, lizards, bugs, scorpions, even elephants!
bloody hell, that's a flembot image/location if I've ever seen one!
again, pissed off i found it so late haha. love it!
Indeed, I hope they will rename it Flemmings' Mars Landscape – it is truly awesome and I could not dream it better.
Definitely has had the FBJ filter run across this one (my favourite filter) – a hallmark image for the gallery.
Thanks Muzz, I wonder if I could make an iFBJ t-shirt sorta like those iTNFP t-shirts a certain someone has been sporting. Loving this image myself, very me.