Posts tagged namibia
Namibia by Bob Johnson ARPS

On Tuesday evening Bob Johnson presented his Namibia talk at our regular venue, the City Academy. This was Bob's third visit to NDPS but his first in person. His two previous presentations, Kingdom of The Ice Bear and Carnivores of the Serengeti, were delivered via Zoom during the pandemic.

 How nice to have him in the room for the first time. He briefly mentioned that he had by now spent a year in Africa photographing wildlife, the landscape, and the people. He said that he now had a small fleet of drones as well as his usual cameras and lenses.

 This was a travelogue of the visit made my Bob and his wife Peggy. A journey through the driest country in sub-Sahara Africa, Namibia. The country is named after the Namib desert, and that name, Namib, means vast place. Bob hired a land cruiser and driver for his trip and travelled from South to North in the country visiting not only the inland sand dunes and bush but also the coast, the Atlantic Ocean. And all the time he photographed amazing wildlife - enormous, fearless pelicans, colonies of seals (you could smell them before you saw them), Cape Sparrows, Egrets and Flamingos! But Bob also managed to capture lots of elephant, giraffes and took photos of both black and white Rhinos.

 Not content with the wildlife he recorded the sand filled old diamond mines, the sand dunes in the light of dawn and some spectacular shots of people walking on the rims of the dunes and some lovely shots of local people from the villages with their lack of concern at not wearing much clothing and their rain dance.

  A wonderfully entertaining evening of wildlife, nature, and community photography. We are once again indebted to Bob Johnson for a wonderful evening.

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Living and Working as a Professional Photographer in Namibia by Scott Hurd

This week’s regular Tuesday meeting saw members and guests attended this Zoom presentation from a consummate professional photographer. Scott led us through his journey from England to Namibia and told us, by means of his wonderful photographs, how his work unfolds in that sub-Saharan, west coast country.

But Scott began his talk by outlining the origins of man in this area and throughout added more and more information, bit by bit, and brought us into the present day - so much so that he told us about the Namibian fight against Covid and how successful the country had been in containing the pandemic.

What a fantastic country - the Skeleton Coast, Fish River Canyon and the Benguela Current. It is no wonder that tourism makes up such a big part of Namibia's GDP.

Health and safety needed to be considered - he showed us a publicity shot of a floating bar, a beautiful bar in a tropical sunset. But the bridge to it had missing planks and the handrail was only really there for the high voltage cable! This is Africa. But Namibia is changing it has the best roads in Africa (and the worst drivers in Africa).

The scope of work Scott has undertaken is inspiring, we saw photos of children at school, fabulous weddings and, of course, the wildlife. Black and white rhinos, hippopotamus, desert elephants and pangolins. How can these animals be saved from poachers who sell their scales for medicine and their bodies for food. Scott's work in photographing all these endangered species certainly helps to raise awareness worldwide.

His assignments included being there when a gold mine was first discovered and recording every stage of the industrial development, photographing the front line anti-poaching squads and shooting the President.

Perhaps his oddest shoot was the Calendar Girls shoot for an all-female equivalent of the Women's Institute.

The evening was a cornucopia of plenty! Thanks Scott.

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