A short walk in the Sahara

ancient_mariner

ancient_mariner

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Toni
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The touring trip we did in Morocco in September was well organised - sometimes too well organised - and we had an overnight stay in the Sahara booked in. However I enjoy a bit of freedom too, and after we were dropped at out hotel prior to going to the desert camp I had about an hour free for photos. The hotel was right on the edge of the desert, and once I'd managed to escape the compound and find a way out, I was able to walk into the sand.

Distances are a lot further than one might expect, and 20min walking across the sand doesn't seem to take you very far at all!

There's also a lot of it, and it can be hard to know where to point the camera. In retrospect I kept wishing I'd included or missed out various parts, but this is my first time shoot this kind of scene, and I'd no idea how the sand would come out in the final images. There's also a lot of man-made debris: plastic bottles, water pipes, wires, concrete excretions & camel prints & dung everywhere, plus 4WD tyre tracks.

Glad I DID venture out, because where we camped overnight, apart from the thick clouds, rainstorm and murky sunrise, was also terribly crowded with tents & vehicles. This place, but a few min away from the town was much quieter & cleaner.

In the order in which they were taken:

Sahara Merzouga 1 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 2 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 3 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Those are my footprints.
Sahara Merzouga 4 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 5 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 6 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 7 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

Sahara Merzouga 8 by Toni Ertl, on Flickr

C&C welcome.
 
“Excellent” set of images, liking all of these very much.

George.
 
I really like these photos, thumbs up from me for what its worth lol
 
I like number 7, good sense of scale. Nice shadows.
 
Really like 4 & 5. It's nice to see some civilisation in the more traditional "i'm in the middle of nowhere" desert shots. 5 is a very nice abstract.

Wonder what it would have looked like with an orange filter to pull down that (blue?) sky a bit more and lift the sand (or did you effectively add it in post?).
 
A stunning set, I always preferred b&w for desert shots. Yours really do capture the essence of the textures and space that make me love the desert for creativity.
 
lightshipman said:
Stunning, never seen so many shots of desert in one post before.
Click to expand...

Thanks Andrew, perhaps 8 was a bit too many, but just 4 didn't seem to hang together so well.

Harlequin565 said:
Really like 4 & 5. It's nice to see some civilisation in the more traditional "i'm in the middle of nowhere" desert shots. 5 is a very nice abstract.

Wonder what it would have looked like with an orange filter to pull down that (blue?) sky a bit more and lift the sand (or did you effectively add it in post?).
Click to expand...

Good thoughts Ian. The sky was fairly hazy lower down despite the appearance of separate clouds, so the classical deep blue wasn't available without some framing that missed a lot of the sand. I've not experimented lifting the sand too much - this tonal range was picked because it seemed to show off the shapes and curves best. May well have a go at re-processing to see if the shapes can be retained while reversing the light sky/dark sand.

Lindsay56 said:
A stunning set, I always preferred b&w for desert shots. Yours really do capture the essence of the textures and space that make me love the desert for creativity.
Click to expand...

Thank you Lindsay. It's my first time in this kind of desert, and a little like walking through a wood, there were almost too many possible photographs here. I'd love a chance to go bad and get a little deeper in.
 
Very nicely done..
 
ancient_mariner said:
Thanks Andrew, perhaps 8 was a bit too many, but just 4 didn't seem to hang together so well.



Good thoughts Ian. The sky was fairly hazy lower down despite the appearance of separate clouds, so the classical deep blue wasn't available without some framing that missed a lot of the sand. I've not experimented lifting the sand too much - this tonal range was picked because it seemed to show off the shapes and curves best. May well have a go at re-processing to see if the shapes can be retained while reversing the light sky/dark sand.



Thank you Lindsay. It's my first time in this kind of desert, and a little like walking through a wood, there were almost too many possible photographs here. I'd love a chance to go bad and get a little deeper in.
Click to expand...
No I don’t think they were too many, just think it gave a good all round view, a good selection of the various aspects
 
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