04.03.2020
Kwessi Dunes Lodge, Natural Selection
“We really need to cut down on the photo trips this year, and spend more time in the studio” we decided, about 3 days before Natural Selection asked us to photograph their stunning new lodge in the Namibrand.
“Yes please” we said, without a second thought.
There’s a real excitement to photographing a completely new lodge; professionally there’s likely to be more exposure, and the honour of being the first in there. It’s not without pressure though – there’s no fall-back if you don’t deliver, and although there’s a crispness to a new lodge, frequently the immediate environment still bears the scars of the recent construction.
The photographic requirements for a new lodge are very broad – interiors, food, activities, landscape, drone, people and wildlife. A lot to do in a short space of time, especially when we typically take a day or two to really get a feel for the shots we want to get. We try to do as much research before we leave, but there are some things that you just can’t prepare for. Every evening, without fail, the winds picked up and did their best to disrupt our best-laid plans; table-cloths were blown away, chairs blown over, sheets flapped and the drone just couldn’t cope.
What to do…? Get everybody up early in the morning and set up in the dark, so that you shoot your ‘sunsets’ at dawn… Can you tell?
