March 7, 2017
Quiver Tree Forest at Gannabos, near Nieuwoudtville, South Africa

Jan and I had a wonderful two nights at the Quiver Tree or Kokerboom (Aloe dichotoma) forest at Gannabos near Nieuwoudtville in Namakwa, South Africa. We had photographed quiver trees before near Springbok, but there they are scattered and (nicely) isolated. I learned about this quiver tree forest last August while staying at Namaqua National Park and made an exploratory visit during the middle of the day. That short visit made me want to come back for an extended time with multiple sunrise and sunset shooting opportunities. So, a few days ago, we stayed at the wonderful Brandkop Guest Farm cottage overlooking the quiver tree forest for two nights. It's in an old dam-keeper's house out in the boonies with no cell reception or electricity except for the solar-powered LED lights. It was a great place to really disconnect from the grid for a while and live the simple life of iPhones for reading Kindle books and Macs for image editing, both powered by external battery packs. :) The sky was completely clear the whole time we were there, so my favorite way of isolating a tree by having it located on the horizon wasn't very interesting. The next best way I found to isolate the trees was to find a bare area of hillside to put behind the trees like I did here.

I made several close-up, and semi-abstract images of the leaf patterns, and this one is my favorite.

I also made several images of part of a tree in the foreground with various parts of the forest in the background. Enjoy!