This autumn I visited the Karoo desert in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa, staying at the Karoo Ridge Conservancy, a private game farm jointly-owned by university friends.
This is a harsh, baked and desiccated environment, where great dolorite escarpments and rock stacks thrust out of the rolling scrubby plains, scattered skeletal windmills pump the only water, and the gorgeous looping outlines of kopje hills define horizons.
I’ll illustrate the region’s animals, plants and landscapes in future posts with my conventional camera, but first comes is a set of landscape images from my Olympus E-M10ii which has been converted for full-spectrum photography, all via a 720nm filter designed for monochrome conversions.
Deserts lit by strong sunshine make a perfect subject for infra-red photography, exaggerating their other-worldly nature.
Kopje and clouds
Karoo Ridge windmill
Cabbage trees in evening light
Cabbage tree at dusk
The road ahead
Photographing the windmill
Conservancy lodge
Road and rocks
Hot afternoon
Dry waterhole by the lodge
Hitching post
Pears on the Moon?
Agaves
Two lodges are available providing accommodation on the Conservancy, which can be rented by the room or in their entirety. More information is available: https://karooridgeconservancy.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/karooridgeconservancy/