I took this on a road trip safari between Cape Town and the far northern parts of Namibia in 2013. The Dead Vlei is probably the most photographed location in Namibia and it gets a bit jaded to see the same old photos of it everywhere. On an early morning excursion to this location (which is not easy to get to at that time of the day) my guests were all set to try and emulate a famous surrealistic photo made by a guy (who's name escapes me now). We got there just before sunrise and they had all set up to shoot the dune that the sun hits first while the pan itself is still in shadow. I tried something different and faced the other way, waiting for the sun to emerge from the crest of the opposite dune. It's become one of my favourite photos. What do you think?
This was shot with the Olympus E-M5 and 9-18mm f/4-5.6 and (I think) a LEE Seven5 0.3 ND graduated filter.
Pretty solid, I like the the saturation and color palate, composition seems solid. I think the tree in the foreground seems a little over-processed, but other than that I like it.
Thanks for commenting, Darragh. In my original version I left the tree un-touched. For this re-work I decided to raise the exposure on that one a bit. Might have over-cooked it a bit, as you say. :)