Namibia Tour Feedback

C4 Images and Safaris led a two-week photo tour to the wonderful desert country of Namibia in July. We planned the tour to move through the desert areas, showcasing the various types of arid environments that this country has to offer.





Of course the landscapes are world-renowned and we worked hard to maximise out time there. One aspect of this was organising early and late permits into the parks. This allowed us to relax in the quiet desert environment during the twilight hours and photograph to our hearts content without the pressure of having to run for a gate. Being out in the middle of the desert photographing stars all alone was a fantastic experience!





From there we moved north to Swakopmund where we had booked flights over the Namib Desert. This proved to be a real highlight. Again, we had the door specially removed for photography. This helped an immense deal in getting our images, and added the necessary contrast to the image that a window takes out.





After that we had a private guided tour with Tommy from Living deserts tours. Tommy is a legend in the deserts and he runs faster up a dune than any animal I know. A fantastic morning with Tommy revealed all manner of beautiful endemic and unique desert creatures.





We continued our journey north to see and photograph the desert elephant in the Aba-Huab River and then on to Etosha. Of course we all knew what to expect at Etosha, and of course it delivered again. The procession of animals coming in to drink is just a sight to see and although I have seen it so many times before, it never fails to impress.





From there it was back to Windhoek, but not before we had spotted an Aardvark and Aardwolf on our last drive. What a spectacular way to end the tour. Namibia offers excellent diversity of habitats and photography. This is only half of what makes it special though. The other half is the pure quietness of a morning in the dunes. Once you have experienced this, you will no doubt be coming back to this wonderful country, with C4 Images and Safaris of course!





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Namibia - A desert Tour, Part 2

From Sesfontein, we headed east to the infamous Etosha. Staying at Okeakeujo, we never had to leave camp. The days went something like this:

• Wake up and photograph the pygmy falcons at first light
• 07h00 quickly check the waterhole (if it was quiet-which it often is early morning- then grab a quick breakfast, otherwise carry on photographing and try and get a meal in between photographing)
• Head to the waterhole after breakfast and start photographing as the animals come down. You can expect springbuck, kudu, zebra, gemsbuck and wildebeest any time of day.
• At 09h30 the sand grouse start to arrive in there hundreds and the coveys fly right over you head!

• Elephants usually are after that- arriving around 10h30
• By this time you are either exhausted or the light is too hard. Lunch usually sorts this out and for the afternoon you have more of the same.
• Giraffe and elephants are usually the afternoon visitors, amongst all the other game animals.
• After dinner, check up on the waterhole and watch the black rhino drinking!

Really a full day of photographing!
For the last two days we drove across the park to the eastern side where we worked a few waterholes and looked for a couple of mammal specials. These are the black-faced impala and damara dik dik- both which were seen and photographed beautifully.
Unfortunately this was the end of the tour- 13 nights had just flown by like that! The last morning saw us head south to the airport for good byes and farewells. The end of a very successful tour and one that will definitely be done again!

Luckily its only a few weeks till the South African tour when C4 Images and Safaris will lead many of the same faces in showing some different and new wonders. Till then!

You can see the more images that Shem, owner of C4 Images and Safaris took on this tour here:
Shem black and white collection
Shem colour collection
Blog on dunes

Read part one of the Namibia photo tour here.

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