One of the biggest frustrations of being a photographer when traveling is often being at the mercy of others around when and where and for how long you can stop. This is particularly true when you’re traveling for work, not fun. And the frustration only grows when the landscape you’re passing through is visually spectacular.
The key to any good picture, and definitely true to landscape photography, is the need to move yourself into a position to make the most of a scene. Is that tree better placed on the left or the right? Should I get in close and use a wide angle, or stand off and zoom? If I wait here another five minutes, is the sun going to break through and hit that particular part of my composition and make it take off? Photography is the art of scribing light. You need to be in the perfect position, and the perfect moment.
And that perfect position and perfect moment is almost never through a car window. Or a car windshield. Or, for that matter, an airplane seat.
I’ve sadly had to score my fair share of shots from car windows. I hate it. They are always sub-standard to what I would like, or the vision I have for the scene, and unless you’re very fortunate, there’s almost invariable motion blur, particularly in the foreground. On my most recent trip through north-western Ethiopia, it was doubly painful. Not only was the landscape glorious, but the lighting was spectacular. It was variable and changing, we were on the road early and late as the light turned golden, and you really would have struggled to find more dramatic combinations of scenery and sunlight at times. I just wanted out of that vehicle and to be taking my sweet time framing up the shots I wanted to take.
Alas, there are only so many times you can ask the driver to stop and your colleagues to wait patiently in the car while you grab your snaps.
And the toilet-break excuse has a ceiling.
Sometimes you just make do with what you’ve got, however, and in this case, several of this little series of light-captures were snapped from the moving vehicle, the others grabbed during brief moments when we were stopped at the side of the road. Not my favourite option, and given the quality of the light, I wish I could have positioned myself better- there were some epic opportunities. But thems the breaks. Here’s what I got out of them though, and I quite like how some of them turned out. As much luck as anything. One of these days I hope to be out on the road myself here, able to stop whenever I feel like it. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these ones.
Photos:
1. The Golden Hour: Morning haze gathers in folds of the landscape lit by a morning sun just on the Amhara side of the border with Benishangul-Gumuz Note: If you click on this image, I’ve included the link to a larger size of this image which is worth linking through to- the small frame doesn’t capture the landscape well.
2. Traveling Light: Shooting straight into the sun, hanging out of the side window of the Land Cruiser
3. Out of the Burning Dawn: A man walks along a road at sunrise not far from Chagni, in SW Amhara Region; shot through the car windshield into full sun. Note: Same for this one- click through for larger image.
4. A tree, captured out of the side window of the truck, stands silhouetted against the overexposed sky, smoke and dust from the road swirling at its roots
5. Metalled road west of Chagni, Amhara Region, at dawn
6. A painted truck, caught with the rising sun ahead of it, through the windshield of our four-by-four
7. Truck headlights at dusk in Mandura Woreda, Benishangul-Gumuz
8. Smoke and clouds blend at dusk above a burning rubbish tip on the outskirts of Bahir Dar
It’s 6pm. I sit on the deck on the 6th floor of the hotel while my camera perches on its tripod, taking time-lapse shots of the traffic on Road 22. The sun’s gone down, just a burnt smudge on the sky where its fleeing rays catch in the city smog. Sunday evening traffic rumbles, steady but not chaotic. The air is cool, refreshing. I’ve an Amber Beer on the table beside me, the latest release from the local St George brewery, just a few months old, and with its sweeter notes of burnt caramel and hops, one of the continents better brews. As I look out over the city skyline, it’s a muddled jumble of mid-rise towers, basilica domes and construction scaffolding, all backed by the lurking hills that ring the city basin.
The two weeks I’ve been here since starting my contract feel like two months. At least. I’ve stepped- finally- into a senior role in an HRI-affiliate (Coming to a Community Near You™). The mental overload of learning the ropes of a new job have been overlaid with learning a new city, a new country, and the nuances of a new culture.
To say nothing of memorizing Ethiopian names.
It’s November. The rainy season has been, and the skies are blue. All day, every day. A few clouds lurk in the evenings behind the hilltops, but that’s about it. One morning a smog so thick it recalls a winter fog in the home counties chokes the city. Rush hour traffic tumbles from the murk, darkened silhouettes dashing from the throat-burning, eye-tearing fug, until a brisk midday breeze sweeps the air clean. The wind is cool and fresh and fidgets with plastic bags and the airborne detritus of the city.
Poor is layered on rich here. There aren’t clearly deliniated quartiers split between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Here, a hotel backs onto unpaved tracks and run-down alotments. There, street children gather outside an expat-frequented supermarket stocked with Malaysian imports with Arabic scrawls and stamped حلال. I join new friends and eat at a fancy French restaurant that sets us back forty bucks a head- a pricey night out here where you can buy lunch for a dollar and a dead-jarring coffee for fifty cents. Through the cracked windshield of my taxi heading back, I see the homeless lying in rows beneath the overpass fifty paces from my hotel.
I spend a morning getting my medical checks done, a part of the work permit application process. It’s a slow, bureaucratic tedium that involves drifting from one department’s waiting line to the next. When I get my ECG done, I’m one part amused, one part appauled by the contraption, all crocodile clips and vacuum-bulbs wired up to a device like the electro-shock therapy machine in Return to Oz. As the doctor smears a conductive jelly over my bare torso, I’m just impressed they have an ECG machine. Three days later I still have the bruises from the suction cups beneath my nipples.
A Kenyan, a Ugandan, a German, an American and I sound like the start to a bad joke, but we head out to dinner at Face of Addis, a restaurant perched halfway up one of the hills overlooking the city. The little blue taxi of Eastern European design fails to scramble up the angle of the crushed rock street and we get out to alleviate its weight, wherein its tinny motor wails and eventually convinces it up the ascent. A glass frontage gives a magnificent view over the blooming metropolis. We watch plane after plane land at Bole International, one of Africa’s busiest airports and a hub for European access. Ethiopian Airlines is the newest member of Star Alliance, and we watch five jets come in to land in no more than ten minutes, their starlike landing lights queued out to the horizon one behind the other.
Our conversation is banter, periodically dark. We’re mostly emergency response folk. With us is the manager for one of our refugee camp responses, and three of the staff are based in Nairobi, where tensions run high ahead of the upcoming elections. Our Kenyan colleague, half Kikuyu (infamous for their business acumen), bears the brunt of our humour. We promise to hold her a spot in our Ethiopian refugee camp when she has to flee her country next March.
“How can you tell if a Kikuyu is dead?” Jokes the Ugandan. “You take a ten cent coin…” He mimes dropping it in front of the presumedly-deceased.
Growth is constant here. As with elsewhere in Africa, the Chinese are huge investors. They can be seen throughout the city. Another night we eat at a cultural restaurant, popular here as they showcase local food, music and dancing. Over a meal of tibs and gitfo (cooked), we watch a Chinese businessman lose his inhibitions over beer and tej, the local honey wine. When one of the lithe dancers invites him to dance, he gives a performance worthy of a YouTube phenomenon, one part jitterbug and one part funky-chicken. He lurches onto the stage and after embracing a drummer who goodnaturedly surrenders his instrument, animates the drum with much flailing of the arms. The dancers subsequently adopt his movement into their routine, to much appreciation from the crowd, but our table is torn between laughing at the smooth adaptation of the performers, and the cubit-lengthed rat that has emerged from the straw roof and is now picking its way along the top of a wall at the back of the stage.
The people are understated, gracious, and quietly proud. Ethiopians speak of how they have never been colonized, quietly brushing over the brief period of occupation by Mussolini’s forces that has left pasta an almost national dish and named the Mercato, the city’s market district and a national monument. I walk a tightrope, trying to build relationship and trust, while following my own instructions of pushing through change faster than any of us are comfortable with. After some meetings I come away with my head spinning from the concentration of trying to maintain a dynamic of respect, while at the same moment having to implement an unpopular decision.
I’m shown round an apartment. It’s spacious, clean, and has a beautiful view of the city. It costs a fraction of what a similar place would cost in Australia. Afterwards I sit down with two colleagues and share a cup of tea. One explains to me how he ‘adopted’ two boys, one off the streets of Addis who used to sell him cigarettes, the other from an impoverished regional town. Both are adults now, one a teacher, the other a scientist. In his own humble way, his pride both at the boys, and the difference he has made in his own country, shines in his eyes. Apparently such an undertaking- to financially sponsor and support the less fortunate in their community- is fairly commonplace among middle-class Ethiopians.
I hurtle along in one of the little blue taxis. They’re ancient, decrepit vehicles, clearly from the Communist era. Sitting in the front seat, safety belt unavailable as we hare down an empty avenue late in the evening, I’m twitchingly sensitive to a sense of my own mortality. The time of the Derg is evident here in the charmless concrete tower-block apartments and the deep respect for government authority. Posters of the late Meles Zenawi, President and then Prime Minister since the overthrow of the communist government and the war with Eritrea, are everywhere. He passed away of natural causes a few months ago, and is revered as a saint and national treasure.
An LED screen is mounted outside Edna Mall. At night time it is garish, blasting colour and movement over the gridlocked roundabout as people hustle beneath its glow, neon-tinted music videos lending a Blade-Runner-esque atmosphere to the crowd. Glass-fronted restaurants and fashion boutiques overlook the avenue. On a Sunday afternoon, Amhara youth in spray-on jeans and designer tops lounge together in cafes and browse their iPhones. I step onto the street with a friend and across the avenue, golden sunlight from the settling dusk paints the domes of the Orthodox cathedral while prayers sing from the loudspeakers. As we pull away, an old man hobbles across the street on makeshift crutches, head weighed down by a vast, grubby turban, a gold cross dangling at his neck.
The food here is good, the coffee better. I read an accurately descriptive quote in a travel article the other day: “The prefered caffeine delivery mechanism here is the macchiato.” It comes at morning-tea time without fail in a shot-sized glass, rich black coffee with milky froth on top. I watch my Ethiopian colleagues spoon two, three, even four shovels of sugar into their brew and suck it down, and feel saintly for my half-spoon concession. I buzz for the rest of the morning and half the afternoon. At lunch I join them in the canteen and pay sixty-five cents for shiro wat and injera- a tasty red sauce poured onto a bed of the spongy teff-based bread that is a national institution. The fingernails of my right hand are already stained yellow with the remnants of spice.
It’s dark now, and the traffic is steady but thinning. Come tomorrow morning, it will be a choked grind up and down the clogged arteries of Ethiopia’s throbbing heart. My commute- a brief walk from the hotel to the office- reaches its climax trying to cross the four-to-six lanes of moving metal, waiting for the right moment when I can step out and not be pulverised. A dead bitch lies swelling in the sun in the lane across from the hotel. In my brief time here I’ve already seen one man hit by a car, but fortunately not seriously.
My waiter comes round with another Amber. He sees me working away on the computer, next to my constantly-snapping camera.
“You make movies with that one?” he asks me. “What software you are using?”
I try to explain the concept of time-lapse photography and fail to find an example on my hard drive. He tells me that in his free time he does video-editting for weddings and likes to integrate photographs into the process. A short while later he brings me a plate of toasted grain, on the house because he wants me to try some. It tastes like roasted corn kernels, and keeps great company with beer.
There’s a lot up in the air here. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be able to stay. Hopefully, a long time. I’m desperate to follow through some of the changes that are already happening, and have a chance to put my experience in this industry to the test, hopefully make a difference in this office and in this program. Some things are out of my control. If there’s one positive in the limbo I’m currently in, it’s that I’m determined to make the most of every minute this place gives me. Ethiopia is fascinating. It’s enriching, invigorating, inspiring. I’m delighted to be here, despite knowing that challenges doubtless lie ahead. So I’ll share what and when I can, and hope you enjoy the journey with me.
*PS- watch the bottom left corner of the time-lapse video to see the planes coming in to land at Bole International Airport, one after the other
A fisherman poles his canoe, or pinasse, down the Niger River at sunset. Not even ten minutes from the heart of Niger’s capital, Niamey, the feeling along the riverbanks is of a time far older and simpler than the quaint, bustling Sahelian town. During the painfully brief rainy season, the Niger- West Africa’s longest river- floods to over a kilometre wide here in the city, with a steady, weighty flow behind it. During the crippling dry season, which lasts from October until June, the river all but dries up, and herders drive their cattle across the bed, and it’s narrow enough that you can cross all but a channel a dozen metres wide without getting your feet wet.
This author has, in fact, been silly enough to swim across the Niger while its waters are not in flood. And, hippos notwithstanding, quite enjoyed the experience.
This shot was one of my favourite to come out of my time in Niger, and captured the serene beauty of the river which, in turn, turns Niamey from a dry and dusty outpost on the edge of the desert, into a restful and characterful watering hole in the midst of a land wracked with poverty and desolation. Watching the sun set over the Niger River, cold beading beer in hand, was one of a handful of simple pleasures in that country where simple pleasures were few and far between- making them all the more precious when they came.
I have to confess I didn’t really start paying much attention to the sky until I started taking photographs. Now I can’t get enough of it.
As a landscape photographer- and even taking portraits- what the sky is doing is paramount to the end result of your photograph. Once upon a time I figured blue skies (ideally ramped with a nice polarizing filter) were the bees knees when it came to taking a nice scenery shot. I’ve since learned that the variety of clouds you can get- especially on a sunny day- is delightful and can add depth, texture and contrast to a photograph, and make the difference between a postcardy-type of holiday snap, and a truly stand-out image you’d like to hang on your wall. Best of all is when cloud formations line up to mirror part of your landscape or draw the eye to your point of focus.
Sometimes, the sky itself can be a fascinating enough subject. The array of cloud formations and styles is quite literally endless and changes every few seconds with the wind and the changing light- it is quite simply impossible to take two photos of the sky that are identical, and for that the potential is infinite.
Other times it’s nice to frame a little something against the sky just to add a dash of interest, as I’ve done with a couple of these shots. It really depends what’s available, and what adds to an image rather than distracting from the cloudforms.
Of course, shooting clouds at sunset is reminiscent of fish and barrels. As light passing through ever-thickening atmosphere is variously refracted into prismatic shades of the visual electromagnetic spectrum, the painting on the sky is invariably magical, and some of my most satisfying outdoors shots have been taken at dawn or dusk.
This is just a little sampler of some of the sky-focused images I’ve taken over the last couple of years. Lots more to come, I assure you.
Photo Descriptions:
1. Cumulus clouds build up on a steamy summer’s afternoon outside Pretoria, South Africa. It stormed later.
2. Dawn cloudscape in the South Australian outback, along the Oodnadatta Track.
3. Is that the Cat in the Hat? Wispy formation hangs over Melbourne’s Central Business District.
4. Gumtree sky: A variety of cloudforms drift over Victoria’s Yarra Ranges near Warburton.
5. Skytrain: Clouds hang behind a crossing sign marking the abandoned Old Ghan railway line across South Australia’s outback near the Oodnadatta Track.
6. Suburban dystopia: Clouds blur above a power line, one of zillions in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs. Shot with a neutral density filter (ND8) to give several seconds’ worth of exposure in broad daylight, hence the apparent motion in the sky.
7 & 8. Stormy monsoonal clouds soak up setting sunrays over the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sri Lanka’s capital Colombo.
9. Speckles of fluffy cloud spot a rich blue sky behind a Brisbane apartment tower.
10. The twin towers of Melbourne’s Bolte Bridge are backlit against a sunset cloudscape.
11. A stream of condensed exhaust pours from a factory stack in Melbourne’s industrial westlands near Williamstown.
12. Rich hues dance in the fading light of Sri Lanka’s monsoon season.
Sunsets in Niamey were predictably beautiful, particularly in the months following the rainy season before so much dust obscured the atmosphere that the sun could lose itself in the haze. The near-desert air, tinged with sand particles, and cloud-free in the absence of reliable moisture, gave warm orange dusks while the sun itself showed its true colours as an orb of burning gas melting into the horizon.
The Niger River runs north-south through the city, with the bulk of Niamey on the east bank, from where several vantage points gave stunning aspects of the sun going down behind the river itself. From atop the hill on which was perched the Grande Hotel, we would sit with dew-drops wrapped around our cold beers and nibble on barbecued meat on an open poolside deck watching the sun slip behind a low rise of plateau-like hills a few miles away. Better still, from our favourite little hideaway the Diamangou, an old riverboat-turned-restaurant moored on the eastern bank away from the city centre, we would feel the slow gait of the moored craft beneath us as we enjoyed leisurely drinks beneath strings of fairy lights, watching fishermen pole past in their little pirogues and batting at persistent mosquitoes.
This photo was taken in September 2005, during an evening where most of our team had gathered in Niamey. Myself and several colleagues had spent most of our time in the border town of Maradi, close to Nigeria, which was where a large portion of our famine-relief activities were happening. Maradi was a hot, dusty and frenetic town, with little by way of entertainment and less by way of charm. By contrast, Niamey had excitements such as shops, restaurants and freshly-baked french bread that didn’t have the taste and texture of gritty dough.
The fisherman in this picture presumably came from the nearby village, and spent a few minutes moving up and down the bank close to the riverboat, pushing the canoe along with his pole. I took a few shots of him, but this was by far my favourite, shot just as he framed himself in pose, balanced with the backlight of the sun setting. The quiet lap of slow-moving water against the boat, the plop of the pole in the water, the sound of voices drifting through the bushes from the nearby village, soft conversation and buzzing insects all leant the place an exotic peace. The air was warm, the beer was chilled, and the company was good. While there were a lot of times from Niger I would choose never to revisit, this particular riverside moment is one I continue to cherish.
Driving down the Mornington Peninsula last Friday there was a stunning sunset. From the eastern side of the bay the sun always goes down over the bay- but it’s not always that exciting. You need something to put in front of the sunset, and the sun’s rays need something to reflect off. Like clouds.
I pulled in at Safety Beach just as the light was turning magic and it was clear it was going to be something special. And special it was- one of the more colourful sunsets I’ve had the chance to photograph recently, and in a beautiful, peaceful setting by the calm waters of the bay as well. Some local gents in their little boats kept the fore-water looking interesting, while mixed cloud soaked up sunlight like sponges. More shots down the line.
Putting something in front of a sunset is essential. It was actually this grand old Norfolk Pine at the edge of the road (last image) that made me pull over. In the end it didn’t turn out to be the subject I’d hoped it to be, but it none the less provided a point of interest.
I really, really need to get me a telephoto lens. That way I can take these sunset shots and really fill the viewfinder with these distant little subjects against the colourful light.
Plus I won’t have to get so close to the water, so with any luck next time I won’t end up with wet feet courtesy of a stray wave…
The “Magic Hour” is that block of time photographers refer to when they talk about the dramatic changes in light and colour that occur, usually just around sunset. It isn’t an hour at all- in fact, often it lasts just a few short minutes. Without getting too technical, as the sun’s angle in the sky lowers, the rays striking the atmosphere skip off and refract in such a way that different colours of the spectrum appear visible. The light itself appears ‘softer’ because the rays are passing through a greater thickness of atmosphere (including dust and water vapour) which is why the sun appears so much dimmer as it’s about to kiss the horizon, than when it’s at the zenith of its passage across the sky around noon.
What that means for the photographer, of course, is lots of pretty colours.
In fact, it’s more than just pretty colours. And it’s more than just sitting around waiting for the sun to go down. Atmospherics change day by day, which is why no two sunsets are ever the same. A really cloudy day will obscure the sunset altogether (duh). A completely clear day might be very attractive to look at, but from a photographer’s perspective, a straight-up shot of the ball of the sun near the horizon can be boring as plywood unless you find a dramatic silhouette to stick in front of it. A scattering of clouds can make for some of the most interesting images, because they provide a sponge-like canvas to soak up the colour. Most exciting of all are days where there are multiple layers of cloud, so that different layers catch sunrays at different angles, meaning the sky goes lots of different colours all at the same time. I love these days.
The time passes quickly. Relative to its passage at the height of the day, the sun moves quickly in the evening- far moreso at the tropics than near the poles, of course, where sunset might only last fifteen or twenty minutes. That means that the angles of the bands of sunlight change quickly too. On a day with scattered cloud, even the clouds may be moving, giving the photographer a dynamic and exciting pallette that might only remain the same for thirty seconds at a time. I’ve grown accustomed to watching (and attempting to predict, with only average ratings) the colours on the clouds change, build to an apex, then quickly fade away leaving nothing but a damp grey colour behind, all in the space of a couple of minutes. If you’re not ready with the shot, you’ll lose it forever.
What you put in front of the light is every bit as important as the light itself. I’m frustrated at the moment because the sunsets where I am right now are perfect. The monsoon sky gives a scattered cloud cover most evenings that means that it turns wonderful hues of magenta and ochre. The city faces westward over the ocean so there’s an unfettered view of the light right until its last moments above the horizon. Unfortunately, given the placing of the hotel I’m in and its grounds, I have nothing to place in front of the dusk that doesn’t make it look terribly cluttered, and so I end up with photos of a sky, but nothing else, and while these can be quite dramatic for a while, they quickly grow tedious. You want something striking which you can place against the canvas of the sky to break up the image, give the eye a point of focus, but you want it to be simple so that it doesn’t take away from the complexity of the play of light, and something that will work as a silhouette.
Sometimes, everything conspires in your favour, and these are the moments you live for as a photographer: When you have a good horizon, a suitably-painted skyscape, an interesting subject, and then the light throws in something special. Like the first image in this set, where beams of light slipping underneath a strip of cloud splashed over the branches of the tree I was photographing for just a few short seconds, and gave the image an extra spark. It doesn’t happen all that often, but it’s what we’re waiting for.
This series of images was shot over a twenty-five minute time-period on the edge of the Woomera flats north of Port Augusta, the start of the South Australian Outback. The expanses of flat horizon made for perfect framing opportunities, and when Ash and I found this tree perched in the middle of an open field it was too good to pass up. We looked at the sky and figured the afternoon for a good sunset, so we actually perched ourselves here and waited for an hour or so for the light to change. It was well worth the investment, and a really enjoyable shoot as we ran back and forth with our cameras, trying to make the most of the Magic Hour.
I can’t swim in the sea here, because the undertow is apparently too dangerous, but the view from the hotel seawall more than makes up for being left high and dry.
This series of shots was taken over a twenty-minute period as the light changed after the sun had set. If I had my tripod with me I probably could have stretched the exposure out even longer, but as it was I was largely shooting hand-held (so the pics may not be the sharpest). The monsoon light really makes the skyscapes here something special.
The above two photographs were shot a few minutes apart, from exactly the same vantage (though at marginally different angles) on a little spit of land underneath a road-bridge overlooking Noosa Lakes, along Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It was a beautiful sunset, and I wanted to catch the colour of the clouds turning pink as the sun lit them from below. You only get a few minutes to make the most of that sort of colour, as the angle of the sun changes rapidly, and colour builds to intensity, then falls away quickly, and all you’re left with is grey.
The first image (actually taken second) is a regular shot taken with a polarizer, and shows the clouds, their colour, and their reflection in the rippled water. The second shot is taken with the same lens but with what was then my new toy (and still one that doesn’t get a whole load of use, which is a shame cos I really like it), and which I showcase from time-to-time- my ND 400 neutral density filter. By cutting out the light to 1/400th of what it is before the filter goes on but without changing the colour of that light, the ND400 means I can leave the shutter open 400 times as long at the same camera settings without overexposing the shot- thus giving cool effects like moving clouds, smoothed-out water (not that the lake needed much smoothing that evening), and under other circumstances, streaked headlamps or ghosted-out people.
It’s a faff to set up as it involves needing a tripod, a pre-focused and pre-framed image, a shutter-release, the switching round of filters, and, of course, sufficient time to actually expose the frame. But it gives a unique photographic style and a cool effect that is one hundred percent ‘natural’ (by which I mean, produced in-camera, and not in some post-processing photography software on a computer someplace; we can debate the pros and cons of this some other time…).
I thought I’d share with you the comparison of the two styles, just for fun.
