Deadvlei is one of, if not the most, iconic locations in Namibia and somewhere I’ve wanted to visit for quite a while. It is a clay / salt pan in the middle of the desert; basically a marsh that has not only dried up, but lost water at such a rate that the remaining, dead trees have no moisture to decompose and are essentially frozen in time.

The salt pan is surrounded by very high, bright orange sand dunes, while the ground is a hard, white, cracked clay.

The common shots of here show the almost black trees against the vibrant orange sand and the bright blue sky. Instead of showing you my take on those shots, I first thought I’d show you something less common; Deadvlei at night.

I say night, but this isn’t totally the case. You’ll notice that the Milky Way in this shot isn’t as clear and apparent as some of my other night shots. This is because this photo was taken just after sunset; I’ve never seen the Milky Way come out so early.

After shooting the sunset, I hung around for half an hour to see how the sky changed. The stars came out amazingly fast. Although I have other shots from this location that have a more defined Milky Way, I really liked the mood of this image. I hope you like it as well.