Landscape photography – Light and shadows in the Namibian desert (#...

Namibia's desert landscape has a lot to offer. The desert is one of the oldest in the world. It's also one of the hottest and driest on earth. Sossusvlei is a large ephemeral pan within the Namib Naukluft National Park. This is a huge clay pan, enclosed and dominated by giant sand dunes formed over millennia and composed of sand that might have originated in the Kalahari.

These photos were taken at Deadvlei. I stayed at a lodge within the park which gave me the oportunity to go to the pan before the gate opened. The photos are from two different visits. The first was a visit around noon. At sunrise the sun creates a play between light and shadows across this ancient landscape with a floor of dry mud and dead camel thorn trees.

Deadvlei is a clay pan. It was formed when the Tsauschab river flooded. Shallow pools were created. That made it possible for the camel thorn trees to grow. The climate became more dry and the trees died because of lack of water. It is believed that the trees died more than 500 years ago. Now they stand out as black silhouettes in the landscape. Because it's so dry they haven't decomposed. The pan is surrounded by sand dunes. The highest is «Big Daddy» which reaches a hight of 350 meters. The whole area is surrounded by large dunes. Thats whay a popular activity is to climb some of these dunes during sunrise.