Do you ever look at your images and wonder why they just don’t have the ‘pop’ that you see on other people’s shots. There are many reasons that this could be, but we have found that the main one is down to processing. We would like to show you some of our before and after photographs of the steam train we shot in South Africa. If you haven’t read the article yet, click here for these images and more.

But I don’t want to manipulate my photographs

We hear this all the time. “I don’t manipulate my images”, “I only show the ‘truth’”, “What I saw is what I show you” or even “My shots reflect reality”. Let us look at what it is to ‘manipulate’ or ‘process’ photographs.
A photograph is all about using light from a scene and translating it onto a flat surface. This could be a print or on a digital device. Just the act of taking a photograph means you put your own slant on the image. You decide what to include and what to exclude. You change your camera settings and some things are darker and some things are extremely bright as the camera doesn’t have the same range of sensitivity that the human eye has. These things are, of course, a form of image manipulation.

Using dodging and burning as well as all the other options in Raw are just ways of getting the image to look how you envisaged it. Even one of the great photographer masters, Ansel Adams used a lot of image manipulation.

So, all our images are manipulated in Adobe Photoshop, Affinity Photo or other software, so that they look like we envisaged them.

Everything is manipulated. Do as much or as little as you want but always create your own vision of the world.

The post Before and After Photographs appeared first on ImageExplorers.

Black and white beach photography can be a really cathartic experience. Standing on the rocks hearing the crash of waves, feeling slight spray whilst watching the sun come down, can help the day’s worries just evaporate! After this blissful experience, you get home hoping for some gorgeous black and white masterpieces that you envisaged, but sometimes you end up with grey, lifeless images.

Let us show you 5 techniques that we use to get around this problem, when doing black and white beach photography. These will ensure that every time you go down to the sea, you will come back with unique photographs to be proud of.

During our recent trip to Cape Town, South Africa, Ally and I took a day trip to a tiny beach called Slangkop. (This means Snake Head in Afrikaans.) If you’re looking to go there, it is right next to a small village called Kommetjie. There is a beautiful old lighthouse there that dates back to 1919. This 33m high round cast iron tower looks so interesting from a distance that we hoped to get some amazing images of the area. We arrived mid afternoon and stayed until just after sunset. As you will see from the images in this article, the lighthouse was probably the least interesting thing to photograph, mainly because it closes at 3pm and is surrounded by a huge ugly electrified and barbed wire fence.

Why use black and white photography

One of the joys of photographing along the shoreline are the subtle colours one gets from the turquoise of the sea to the orange of the setting sun reflected off of rocks to the pale tan sand. It’s a watercolour painter’s dream, so why would we want to give up these amazing subtleties for a black and white image? There are a number of reasons, but the main ones we find are it forces you to look at the shapes of your scene and we end up with much better compositions.

Black and white can give you incredible dramatic images that any colour can dilute.

Everybody has taken photographs of the beach. Sofor your images to stand out you need to present them with something that’s not been seen hundreds of times before. Black and white photography will do this.

The 5 top techniques we use

1: Photography in the Golden Hour

The golden hour is the hour before sunset and after sunrise. It gives colour photographs a beautiful soft warm colour cast that is really desirable but what does it do for black and white photography? Well, we love shooting in the golden hour because the lighting gives objects a wonderful 3D feel with long and dark shadows. All the textures on rocks just come to life and even sand takes on a new textured look.

2: Silhouettes and contre-jour lighting

Of course the golden hour is perfect for photographing contre-jour. For a more in-depth look at contre-jour look at our article here.  By photographing into the sun you will find the scene take on new and interesting shapes as the light just touches the rim of objects, throwing the rest of the object into darkness. With large areas of darkness you can create mystery in your images as it leaves the viewer’s brain to fill in the details. Be careful with the extreme lighting as it’s really easy to totally blow out (lose all detail) in your highlights. If you’re photographing in an auto mode be careful as your camera could be lying to you by giving you the wrong exposure. Exposure compensation is your best friend in these situations.

There are so many interesting things on the beach to photograph and some of them take on a totally different look and feel when photographed as a silhouette. The stacked rocks have almost an alien world feel to them.

3: Details, details, details

The shoreline is like a fractal. The more closely you look, the more detail you see. Worlds within worlds. So why just photograph the big world everybody else is doing. Look at the details and sometimes some of the most interesting landscapes can be found there. Rocks and sand have so many beautiful textures on them but our favourite textures are to be found on old metal. When doing texture photography we look for old rusted structures wherever we go as they always give wonderful detailed images.

4: Polarising the light and filters

One of the must have filters for any outdoor photography is a polarising filter. A polariser will do so many things to both colour as well as black and white images. For our black and white beach photography we use it mostly to darken the sky. However it is also very useful for getting rid of reflections.

Slangkop lighthouse with a dark sky created by the polarising filter

The other filters we use in beach or any landscape photography are red or orange filters. This filter also darkens the sky (black and white photography only). We always have a UV filter on our lens to protect it as well. The protection is not just about damage either. Sea spray on your lens will degrade the contrast of the image and its so much easier to swap to a clean filter halfway through your shooting rather than trying to clean a lens in sandy sea spray conditions.

Be wary however of ‘stacking’ multiple filters on your lens. Unless they are the very expensive multi-coated variety, you will lose quality especially when photographing contre-jour. With wide-angle lenses you will also be adding a vignetting effect.

5: Neutral Density Filters for misty movement

Another technique is to use a long exposure to get a misty water movement. An ND filter will cut the light coming through your lens allowing you to do really long exposures that give the water a misty ethereal effect.

Don’t forget to use a stable tripod for these long exposures. Even the smallest bit of wind can cause subtle movement and ruin an otherwise perfect image. Usually, we try to put the tripod on rocks or really hard compacted sand to keep it totally steady.

If you are using film be aware of your exposure and reciprocity law failure and compensate accordingly. Depending on your exposure time you might even end up doubling the length of exposure to compensate. If you are not aware of reciprocity law then just bracket your exposures like mad.

Extra techniques – safety for you and your camera

The coastline and your camera don’t mix very well. Salty sea-spray will corrode your pride and joy so very quickly. Keep it out of the spray or sea mist as much as possible. This might mean keeping it in a bag when you’re not shooting or, if the spray is really fierce then put a clear plastic bag over it. (The ones you get for keeping food in work well.) Just cut a hole for the lens.

Be aware of changing lenses in areas where sand is blowing around. Once again sand and sensors don’t play well together.

Be aware of your surroundings. When we were photographing at Slangkop, I was so busy with an image that I didn’t see a very shifty looking person hovering around eyeing our stuff. Fortunately Ally was there, and some locals arrived too, so he scuttled off but if I was on my own things could have been very different.

Extra techniques – what settings should I use for best beach photography

We are doing a whole series on aperture, shutter and exposure compensation articles in this blog but the main thing about beach photography is that your camera can be fooled very easily. The bright sand and reflections off the sea make the camera think that there is more light than there really is so your images can turn out slightly underexposed. If in doubt, bracket a lot.

370,000 miles of unique possibilities

Around our planet there’s approximately 370,000 miles of coastline from stunning long sandy beaches to ragged cliffs. There is just so much variety and so many options to create unique and exciting images. Be safe, look for the less obvious and craft your own black and white beach photography and masterpieces every time.

The post Black and White Beach Photography appeared first on ImageExplorers.

So often when we photograph places of interest, we look solely at the aesthetics of the scene. How does the light make it feel? What interesting shapes appear in the final image to draw the eye in? Which details shall I leave out to create a stronger composition? These are usually the things going through a photographer’s head. Occasionally though, there is a subject that is so much more powerful and important than our everlasting search for spectacular and beautiful images. Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island was just such a place.

Robben Island Maximum Security wing yard wall

Background for context

I, Tim, am a South African and British hybrid. I’ve spent half my life in South Africa and half in the United Kingdom near London. I had an English father and a South African mother. I grew up in the apartheid South Africa (Durban) as a typical privileged white male.

Apartheid

Nobody really spoke of apartheid issues at our (all white) school. Apartheid was deemed a good thing by most white adults as it meant prosperity for the few, cheap labour, and it kept people, who were made out to be ‘slightly less human than us’, at bay. It was only in my last years of schooling and starting college that I started to question the evil status quo.

I started hanging around with friends who were anti-apartheid and questioning the government’s policy and lack of human rights if you weren’t white.  During this time, I met a number of people who had been targeted by the apartheid government security police (BOSS – Bureau of State Security, later NIS). Some of them had been tortured, whilst some had lost loved ones who had been killed by the state. One friend had a bomb go off in her office and it killed a fellow worker. The parcel bomb was believed to have been sent by the government security services. Another friend’s boyfriend was murdered by the army when he fled to a neighbouring country. These friends were white but supported anti-apartheid organisations. It was even worse if you were black. I heard many accounts of pain and death at the hands of the state. This turned me into a highly cynical individual when it comes to government and corporate behaviour, as Ally will testify to.

South African Army

When I was called up to go into the South African army (all white male South Africans had to do 2 years in the army then) I had to make some choices. The army at that time had two main roles. To fight the ANC, who are now the government, and to keep black people in subservience with a strong military presence in the townships. (Townships were black only towns with few amenities and situated far away from the affluent white areas. Apartheid is an Afrikaans word meaning apartness. Whites lived in white areas, Black people in black zoned areas etc. Different races each had their own area. This was the law and severe punishments were metered out for breaking it.)

The Choice

I could not agree with any of those horrific policies so just before I was due to report for duty I hatched an exit plan. I wrote a letter to the army intake officer telling him that I was out of the country and was unable to get back to report for duty. Explaining that that I would let them know as soon as I returned, I posted the letter to a friend in London who then sent it on to the army so it arrived back in SA with a UK stamp. This bought me time. By time I mean a number of harrowing months of worrying that I would be arrested. I finally managed to leave the country almost 6 months later.

Why couldn’t I just be a political objector?

The price for political objection was 6 years prison and as I was only in my mid-twenties I didn’t consider that as a viable option. This is always something that has always left me feeling guilty, as I was fortunate enough to leave, while millions of South Africans had to stay and endure.

Before anybody thinks that I am just anti-authority (well… maybe I am a bit) I must point out that I was in the London Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard) as a forensic specialist photographer for 7 years.

It is through this lens that I viewed Robben Island, the maximum-security prison island for political prisoners.

Trip to Robben Island

It was a beautiful Cape Town summer’s day, but Ally and my hopes to visit Robben Island had been dashed the night before. It turns out that you have to book weeks or sometimes months in advance. We decided to go down to the booking office in case there were any cancellations. As we arrived one of the booking staff had just got a few cancelled tickets so we were on our way.

A half an hour boat trip across the sea with spectacular views of Table Mountain in the background does not prepare one for the heart-breaking yet inspiring visit to come.

Prisoners were forced to dig rocks in this quarry. The cave is where they sheltered from the harsh sun during breaks

Arrival and the bus trip

Whilst you are not allowed to wander around by yourself you do get a very knowledgeable guide on the bus tour. Very often this is a former prisoner from the island. On the tour you visit the quarry where the prisoners broke rocks, see the light house and staff village and find out interesting facts like that Robben Island was once a leper colony amongst other things.

Here is also where there is now a significant pile of rocks. This was started by Nelson Mandela, who after being elected President, attended a reunion on Robben Island. He walked off to the side dropped a rock onto the ground. He was followed by many of the former prisoners who added their own rock to the pile. This formed a rock memorial to their time on the island.

It is because of the bright sun off the rocks, the alkalinity of rocks and constant exposure that Nelson Mandela’s tear ducts were damaged. Press photographers were asked not to use flash when taking photographs of him.

Once into the maximum security cell area we had a new guide who was once an inmate with Nelson Mandela.

Robben Island ex-prisoner guide

Maximum security wing

From a purely photographic point of view, the maximum security wing, with its grey cells, barbed wire and sparse vegetation is nothing to write home about. Then you hear the stories about how Africa National Congress activist Nelson Mandela with help from Ahmed Kathrada and Walter Sisulu wrote the book ‘Long walk to freedom’ under the noses of the guards and hid pages in the garden in tins, the whole place comes alive. Stories from somebody who was there, about how they hid secret messages in a tennis ball and threw it over the wall ‘by mistake’ so they could communicate with other inmates, just leave you in awe of these men who were beaten but not broken. What impressed me most about these heroic individuals was their overriding hope in even the darkest times of their lives.

Nelson Mandela’s cell

Whilst the tiny cell no 5 that was Nelson Mandela’s (Madiba’s) home for so long initially leaves an impression of sadness. That a man can be caged for such a large part of his life because he fought for human rights is no small thing.  This feeling however soon evaporates. It is replaced by the incredible hope that if a man imprisoned and mis-treated for 27 years can forgive his captors, and then become one of the worlds greatest leaders and Nobel Peace Prize winner, then anything is possible.

Nelson Mandela’s cell on Robben Island

Cells on Robben Island Maximum security wing

I would have loved to go into the cell to photograph from Nelson’s point of view but unfortunately the cells are locked. So, I had to hang back until the crowd had gone,  then photograph the corridor to try to show the loneliness of it all.

Nelson Mandela’s cell and lock with plate and toilet bucket

The prison yard and garden

Outside Nelson Mandela’s cell in the prison yard are a few bushes that seem to survive in waterless environments. This area is where, later in his incarceration, Nelson tended the garden and hid the manuscript pages for his book. I often try to hang back during any guided tour to get images of the place without tourists. This didn’t work this time so I had to settle for the close up view rather than the large expanse of the yard I was hoping for.

The bright light against the walls, calls for creative exposure. You can’t rely on your camera’s internal light meter for this.

Robben Island Maximum Security Wing garden and exercise yard where manuscript for “Long walk to freedom’ was hidden

Why Black and White?

I have converted many of the images from Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell into Black and White. I feel that the lack of colour helps to reflect the stark and colourless living conditions these South African heroes endured. The high contrast also reflects the intense brightness of the sun beating down onto that little island. Although we photographed with digital cameras we would really like to return with film cameras, with black and white film. See here if you want to see how to convert colour to black and white.

Photograph from the soul

This trip was a very different and special one for me. I am usually very excited about shapes and contrast and textures, but during our visit to Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell my creative photography took a back seat.

Most of the time I photograph subjects from the creative part of my brain. There comes a time occasionally however, when I’m so overwhelmed by the subject. Here, the only thing to do is to look at the scene in wonder, and hope that my photographic auto-pilot will take care of the technical side. This is so my soul can do justice to the final image. Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s cell was that place for me.

Cape Town from Robben Island

Whilst you’re in Cape Town, don’t forget to take a trip up Table Mountain and the best coffee shop in the world, Truth Coffee.

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Who doesn’t hanker after photographing crocodiles, snakes and a traditional Zulu shields maker, not to mention Zulu dancing?  If you do then you need to visit PheZulu.  Forty minutes drive inland from the City of Durban, South Africa in the green KwaZulu-Natal hills, lies an extraordinary experience. There are traditional Zulu shields makers, a crocodile farm, game park with private guided tours, a restaurant and a traditional Zulu dancing show. All in one small area.

Traditional Zulu shields made by Joseph at PheZulu

When we went in, Joseph kindly let us take some photographs of him working. We had to up the ISO slightly whilst indoors, but we got some great depth-of-field by shooting wide open with some close-ups of the parts used in the shields, and some with shields in the foreground and Joseph working out of focus in the background.

Joseph hard at work making Zulu Shields – see our post on what makes a good b&w photo

Zulu spears ready to go with the shields

The restaurant overlooks another absolutely phenomenal view and there’s a small curio shop which used to be in a beautiful rondavel – (a traditional circular African dwelling with a conical thatched roof) – near the entrance but sadly, only recently, burned down completely after being struck by lightning. This is another place where we love to do pans.

They also do Segway tours including a tour where you ride around the game park right up next to giraffes and other wild South African animals. We did the short one first and Nicole introduced us to the segways and how they work. What we didn’t expect was going up and down steep banks that would be a real effort to climb up. It was brilliant fun and she was very patient as I was a bit wobbly in places.

Valley of 1000 Hills

Valley of 1000 Hills. It sounds so gentle and not like anything that would be photography-worthy but that is not the case. In the right light it’s beautiful. The small restaurant / café is a regular haunt for us whilst we’re in Durban as it’s a short drive from Tim’s mom’s. You can have your coffee and food (at ridiculously low prices) whilst enjoying a view that never gets tiring. It  was previously called HillBillys but has changed hands and become Fern Gulley. We don’t know what happened to the last people but they used to have a restaurant training programme, a variety of animals, including pigs, birds, and a talking parakeet who only used to talk to Rachel the previous owner.

The new owners have done wonderful things with the café and it is more inviting with a small gift shop. The views is one of our favourites – I (Ally) took one of my first digital pans with our old Kodak DCS – one of our first digital SLRs and a print of it still has pride of place on our lounge wall.

Valley of 1000 hills South Africa, made up of multiple images and put together in Adobe Photoshop

Before you get to the cafe there are small rondavels which are rented by small businesses. There’s a mixture of jewellery, beadwork, leather goods, trinkets, clothing and bags, as well as the Puzzle Place which has been there for years – think wooden puzzles that drive you crazy! Amazing stuff!

Bracketing and Pans

We sat in the restaurant one evening towards sunset with tea and our cameras poised. Whilst we were admiring the view and in-between Tim’s swearing at his scratchy eye as he’s getting used to contact lenses (don’t get me started on how long it takes to put them in!), we were noticing how the light and the shadows were changing. We knew the haze over the top of the hills would be quite heavy although the way the light models the closer hills, fantastic, but with the fabulous dehaze filter in Photoshop we knew this wouldn’t be a problem. There were cattle grazing in the foreground so we made sure we got those in some of the images to add to the rural feel. I tend to bracket more when shooting skies, but Tim doesn’t, or if he does, he does it manually. I prefer the bracketing function as it means you are more likely to shoot exactly the same image, rather than move the camera a bit whilst you adjust the exposure settings. This showed up when we got back and Tim had only 3gb to download and I had 6gb!! See our top 10 favourite Photoshop Shortcuts.

Wait for the landscape to reveal itself

There is so much to photograph in Natal, not just Zulu shields, and so easy to miss when driving around seeing green hill after green hill, but sit down at a coffee shop, watch the world go by and wait for the sun to get lower and the beautiful landscape will come to life in front of your eyes as the hills reveal themselves.

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Embocraft are the the local South African heroes who are empowering local entrepreneurs with skills training. Making portraits of these amazing people was a bit difficult due to the low and very extreme lighting conditions involved and required low light photography techniques.

What is Embocraft

Situated just up the road from the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust / Woza Moya. Embocraft was started in 1986 to alleviate poverty in the surrounding areas. They do this by conducting skills training to help local entrepreneurs develop and launch their own craft businesses. Training offered there is in sewing, basic computer skills and the internet, welding and screen printing. Work is assessed as they go and feedback given to help improve where appropriate. They are the local heroes who are empowering local entrepreneurs.

Embocraft Sewing Class

As well as these, there is a conference room for hire and a shop where Woza Moya / Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust also have their products for sale.

Making Images

We had the privilege of Goodness showing us around and we were free to make our own images. There was a sewing class and a welding class going on at the time. The lighting conditions in the welding class particularly called for low light photography techniques.

The classes are product based and the entrepreneurs learn how to make clothing, bags and kitchen accessories. As they go along, they receive feedback from their tutors. There was an excitement amongst those where they were able to learn something that would really benefit them and bring in an income.

Thandi inspecting some work – Embocraft Sewing Class

Welding Woes

The main issue we had with photographing was with the welding. It was very dark in that area and then we had the problem of the bright light of the ‘sparks’ in contrast necessitating us to pump up the ISO and using other low light photography techniques. Once finished though, it can give a very striking image. If we exposed for the welder before he started welding, then the image would be totally overexposed when the bright welding sparks kicked in.

One way around this is to set your camera to Auto and then compensate using the exposure compensation buttons. What we did though, was to shoot manually. We took a reading from the scene and then stopped down a few stops to compensate for the light from the welding. We then did a test to see how much we needed to change it. The final resulting images look very dark, but with some Raw adjustments, we were able to pull back a lot of the details whilst still keeping and showing details in the welding sparks. See our tutorial on exposure compensation and how you can do all this in Raw.

Welding class at Embocraft

Welding class at Embocraft – necessitated low light photography techniques

Embocraft is another model example of the way that South Africans have found to help one another in tough times. It is staffed by people who care deeply about what they do and although money is always needed to make these organisations run, it is secondary to the well-being of everyone involved.

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Woza Moya. It just rolls sweetly off the tongue and means “Come spirt of change” in isiZulu. (IsiZulu is the language of the Zulu South Africans usually living on the East side of South Africa).

So what is Woza Moya?

It is lifeline of support and hope to hundreds, (thousands if you include their dependents), of otherwise desperate people whilst masquerading as a beautiful little craft shop. Although specialising in traditional beadwork they also sell all types of African art and craft from painting, sewing, wirework, crochet, pottery, fabric painting and woodwork through to repurposing and upcycling waste to make beautiful products.

Ally browsing in the Craft Shop

A few of the many hand-made products

Dark Times in Modern South Africa

Why is it so important to so many people? Well at the end of the last century HIV/AIDS was rife in South Africa. It was a taboo subject that nobody would talk about and there was almost no access to anti-viral drugs. People were dying in their thousands. Children were left without parents and only a few lucky ones had grandparents to look after them. A very dark time for all modern South Africa.

Woza Moya creates jobs and income for so many HIV/AIDS sufferers as well as fundraising for the AIDS Centre, and brings hope to them and their dependents. The beaders work from home, buying supplies at cost from Woza Moya, and create beautiful beaded craft items. They then bring these products to the Hillcrest AIDS Centre once a week to be sold on in the Woza Moya craft shops, with a small mark-up. It empowers them to earn a living from crafts they make.

Paula and Zandi – always really helpful and friendly

Colourful Zulu Skills and Photography

In this post we’re going to concentrate on the craft shops. Not far from Durban there are three – Hillcrest, Botha’s Hill and Kloof. We met Paula who is the manager of the centre and she allowed us to take photographs throughout our visit. Lungile took the time to show us around and explain it all to us. The indoor photography was very simple from a technical point of view. The only issues that you might come across in these situations is the bright sunlight streaming through windows. The easiest thing to do is to avoid it or shoot multiple exposures and comp them together. See our post on Exposure Compensation for more details. But back to the more important part of this post. The people, their skills and passion, and desire for a better future.

Lungile – who showed us around

We’d like to tell you more about the incredible beading. Beading is a traditional Zulu skill passed down through generations. It’s normally threaded onto cotton or wire to make the most amazing products from tiny little badges through to Africa’s first fully beaded suit! In Cape Town last year, we even saw a fully covered beaded military vehicle!!

Beautiful beaded bracelets

The Dream Chair

In 2009 the Woza Moya crafters attended a body mapping workshop where it was found that due to having lived in poverty for so long, very few of them had dreams. They were encouraged to ‘bead their dreams’. With the pieces that were received, the ‘Dream Chair’ came to life. The dream chair journeyed around the world and a book was made of people dreaming their dreams, which is for sale by the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust.

Dreams for Africa Chair – Image courtesy of Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust

Paula Thomson – Executive Manager and Craft Co-ordinator of Woza Moya

Little Travellers

The trademark item of Woza Moya is the Little Traveller. They were the brainchild of Thandiwe, one of the original patients from the Hillcrest AIDS centre. These tiny people can magically attach themselves to people’s clothing and travel across the world! Well maybe not magically attach, but you can pin them on but that doesn’t sound so cool! They come with their own passport (that you can log journeys on via the Facebook page), and a charm that is irresistible. Each crafter who makes the Little Traveller, gives each doll its own character. Ally wears hers with pride.

The Little Travellers

Volunteers and Paid Workers sorting the Little Travellers for export

Thandiwe – Mother of the Little Travellers, who sadly passed away but whose legacy lives on

Don’t Miss the Love

Although we had travelled past the Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust / Woza Moya several times, it’s easily missed, despite the huge giraffes who are a bit hidden by trees, but once we went into the grounds we were hit with the enormity of the incredible industriousness, love and passion that this project holds, that’s hidden behind an unassuming entrance.

Where to find Hillcrest AIDS Centre Trust / Woza Moya

See our Woza Moya part 2 post.

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Everybody ‘does’ Table Mountain. However, for one of the best experiences available in Cape Town, the sunset trip is second to none. As the sun went down, the clouds descended below and next to us onto the top of the mountain, cascading down the sheer cliffs whilst being highlighted by touches of sunset orange.

During our time there, a function was happening, so we were serenaded by a live band. We highly recommend the Amarula coffee, especially as it can get a bit cool up there when the sun goes down.

Ally on Table Mountain at Sunset

Photographing Sunsets

• When photographing sunsets, double check your lens is clean as the bright sun will pick up any marks and cause flare.
• If you have a sturdy tripod, this will help, or as we did, use rocks to balance – although the clouds move quite fast so try not to use too long exposures, as this will give blurry clouds.
• If you have the Raw option on your camera this will help as the bright sun and clouds will cause your light meter to do cartwheels – see our blog post on “why your camera lies to you”. Alternatively, bracket to ensure you’re getting a good range of detail in the shadows and highlights (also covered in that blog post).

Wildlife

On Table Mountain, you may also get to meet some of the locals, such as the dassies (pronounced dussies). A cross between a large squirrel and rat they’re quite friendly (but don’t touch or feed them).

Dassie

We could have spent hours photographing there, in our elements with the sunset, clouds and views. Totally breath-taking.

Sunset over Table Mountain

Sunset over Table Mountain showing the “Tablecloth” clouds

Hiking

You can walk up (and down) Table Mountain, (only recommended for the fit and only in daylight) but there is also the cable car. Either way you pay to go in – check the website for prices for entry, cable car and tips on hiking.

Table Mountain Cable Car showing the city and Lions Head and Signal Hill

Whilst in Cape Town, if you like coffee, a trip to the best coffee shop in the world, Truth Coffee is a must. And, Robben Island and Nelson Mandela’s Cell is a very thought-provoking and moving trip to be taken.

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