§ 26° 42' S, 15° 12' E — Expedition
UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
Namibia — Angola
Departs · 14 March 2027 · 18 days
SOLD OUT
Across Namibia and Angola, this expedition moves through landscapes where absence remains palpable: dead trees, shipwrecks, sand-filled rooms, abandoned settlements and vast coastal distances. Against them, the living body is not decoration. It becomes a fragile measure of time, memory and survival.
The journey asks how photography can give form to this encounter without turning ruin into spectacle. Working with landscape, figure and sequence, we develop images attentive to material, silence and scale. Each day is shaped by the land itself, while editing sessions turn individual photographs into a more sustained meditation on what endures and what disappears.
Through worlds that have ended
Some places struggle to say goodbye. Long after the last departure, they continue to hold the shape of a life that has gone: a room still turned towards its window, a staircase rising towards an empty landing, the hull of a ship resting where its voyage ended. Sand crosses the threshold. Salt enters the iron. The wind moves through streets that no longer hear a human voice. Yet something persists. These places seem reluctant to release the people who built them, inhabited them, and gave them a reason to exist.
Until the End of the World follows this lingering attachment between place and life through Namibia and Angola. Dead Vlei, the Skeleton Coast, Kolmanskop and Ilha dos Tigres belong to different histories, yet each preserves the visible form of a world that has ended. Together, they become the chapters of a photographic journey towards the edge of the inhabited world, and into the fragile relationship between what disappears and what remains.
We bring a living human presence into that relationship.
The models are central to the work. Through breath, gesture, skin and movement, they enter into a dialogue with places suspended after the departure of life. A hand rests beside a doorway through which others once passed. A figure stands among trees that no longer grow. A body receives the wind beside a ship that will never sail again. For the duration of the photograph, the distance between presence and absence becomes something we can see.
These are landscapes whose images have travelled the world. Their beauty is already familiar; their meaning asks us to stay longer. Working with the models allows us to approach them through the experience of being alive: exposure, solitude, desire, endurance, the need for shelter, the difficulty of leaving. The human story runs alongside the story of each place, sometimes meeting it in a gesture so slight that the whole image depends upon it.
Dead Vlei — the memory of water
At Dead Vlei, that encounter begins with the memory of water. The pale clay pan and the dark, standing trees preserve the traces of an environment that once sustained a different abundance of life. Surrounded by immense red dunes, their stillness feels almost outside the present. Among them, the models introduce warmth and movement into a landscape held in suspension. The curve of a shoulder answers a dry branch; a shadow crosses the white ground; a breathing figure stands where growth has ceased. Photography brings these different conditions of existence into the same moment.
The Skeleton Coast — the remains of voyages
On the Skeleton Coast, the encounter takes place beside the remains of voyages. The Atlantic carries mist across the shore, revealing and concealing the wrecks it has left behind. Those broken hulls once contained work, routine, expectation: people keeping watch, crossing oceans, believing in an arrival. Now iron opens to the weather and sand gathers where water once passed beneath a keel. Against their immense, damaged forms, the models stand within the same wind that is slowly dismantling them. The living body and the exhausted vessel share a brief exposure to the elements.
Kolmanskop — rooms waiting for life
At Kolmanskop, absence retains an intimate, domestic scale. It has bedrooms, corridors, doorframes, a particular way of receiving the afternoon light. Sand rises across floors built for footsteps and gathers beneath windows once opened by someone’s hand. The houses still seem to expect their inhabitants. Working with the models in these rooms brings the human presence close to that expectation: a pause at a threshold, a turn towards the light, the quiet occupation of a space that has waited without knowing it was waiting. For an instant, the architecture appears to remember how to shelter a life.
Ilha dos Tigres — an island after departure
The journey continues into Angola, towards Ilha dos Tigres and the abandoned settlement of São Martinho dos Tigres. Here the separation becomes physical: water between island and mainland, distance between a town and the world that once sustained it. Houses, streets, the church and the remains of the fishing industry endure together, preserving the outline of a community after its departure. We arrive at a place where an entire way of living has become a landscape. Among its empty structures, the models return a human rhythm to the scene — footsteps, breath, the movement of a body through light — while the sea continues around them.
The four places carry four different forms of an ending: an environment changed, a voyage interrupted, a town abandoned, an island settlement left behind. Our photographs follow the life that remains attached to those endings. They ask how a place continues to hold its past, and what happens when a living person enters that suspended relationship.
There is tenderness in this work, as well as grandeur. It asks for attention to the smallest gesture within an immense landscape, to the vulnerability of skin beside iron, to the way a room can seem less empty because someone has stood in its light.
We travel to the end of the world, through worlds that have ended, carrying the most temporary of presences: our own. And through the living body, we attempt, for the length of an image, to give breath again to what no longer lives.
How the idea began
This expedition grew from a conversation that returned, in different forms, over many years of landscape workshops and photographic journeys. Participants would stand before a place they had come to photograph — a coastline, a desert, an abandoned structure, a horizon held by weather and light — and ask a simple question: what might happen if there were someone there?
They were not looking for an accessory, nor for a fashion image placed in an extraordinary landscape. They wanted to extend their own photographic language. Many knew how to work with distance, silence, weather, form and light, but had never worked with a model. They wanted to understand how a human figure could enter a landscape with care: how to begin a dialogue, how to direct without imposing, and how to make an image in which the body and the place remain equally necessary.
From those recurring questions came the idea for this expedition.
Absence and presence — two ways of listening to the same places
The work unfolds through two distinct times.
The time of absence belongs first to the place itself. Before the models enter the frame, we walk, observe, wait and photograph each location in its solitude: the trees of Dead Vlei, the wrecks and mist of the Skeleton Coast, the rooms of Kolmanskop, the streets and shore of Ilha dos Tigres. The landscape is not a backdrop waiting to be completed. It already holds its own history, its own silence, its own image.
Then comes the time of presence.
We return to the same places with the models. Their presence does not fill an emptiness or make the landscape more decorative. It allows another relationship to appear: a living body beside what has endured after life has withdrawn; breath beside iron; skin beside salt; a gesture moving through rooms, dunes and wind.
Each participant works within a small, attentive structure: one model for every two photographers. This creates time for concentration, dialogue and the development of an individual visual language. It gives each photographer the space to observe, to work with care, to make images in solitude, and to let an encounter develop rather than forcing it.
The expedition therefore moves continuously between absence and presence: the place without us, and the place transformed by a living human figure. They are not two separate projects. They are two ways of listening to the same places.
§ What You Will Learn
What You Will Learn
First we photograph the room without anyone in it. Then a model steps into the light. The architecture remains, but its apparent scale, its silence and our relationship to it begin to change. This expedition teaches that passage between absence and presence, through the particular histories of Dead Vlei, the Skeleton Coast, Kolmanskop and Ilha dos Tigres.
Understanding the place before directing the figure
We will begin each location through observation and landscape work. You will study the arrangement of forms, the direction of the light and the traces that give the place its character. Camera position and focal length will help you decide what belongs together within the frame.
When the models enter, those observations become the basis of direction. Working within the programme’s small groups, you will learn to communicate an idea, listen to a model’s response and develop a gesture that belongs to the space. The image may depend on something slight: the distance from a wall, a hand near a doorway or the direction of a face in the wind.
Measuring the difference between skin and landscape
Bright clay, dark trees, sand-filled interiors and coastal mist create distinct exposure problems. We will compare incident and spot readings, place important tones deliberately and examine the contrast between the figure and the surrounding surfaces.
Hasselblad medium format will allow close attention to those tonal transitions and to focus. We will also work with the view camera’s slower construction of an image, exploring perspective and the plane of focus on the ground glass. Panoramic film will give us another way to hold a figure within a long shoreline or an extended architectural space.
Building light around an encounter
Sunbounce reflectors and diffusion will help redirect or soften natural light; flags and negative fill will allow us to deepen a shadow and give a body definition. You will learn to judge the effect of each adjustment through the photograph it makes possible.
With Profoto flash, we will explore controlled additions to the existing illumination. We will work on source distance, modifiers, flash-to-ambient balance and colour temperature, using gels when a correction or a deliberate colour relationship is needed. Grids and flags will contain the light; lens filters will be selected for exposure, reflections or the treatment of highlights.
The arrangement must respond to the place and to the model. In a confined room or on a windy coast, precision may mean reducing the setup to the few elements that are useful.
Two photographs in conversation
During reviews, we will compare images of a place alone with those made in the presence of a model. You will learn to recognise when the figure reveals a new relationship and when it merely repeats something the landscape has already expressed.
We will develop sequences through changes of scale, atmosphere and human presence, keeping the distinct histories of the locations legible. The work will become a study of what happens when a living person enters a place still holding the shape of lives that have gone.
§ Models
Models
The three models who join this expedition are women we have worked with for years. They know Namibia, they know our way of working, and they understand what an expedition truly is: not a shoot, but a photographic production carried across the desert, the ruins and the Atlantic coast.
They are consummate professionals, drawn from the world's leading agencies — and they bring something rarer still. A shoot in Paris, a season of Fashion Week in London, a fitting in a Milanese atelier: all of this they know by heart. Here the work is of another order. They read the landscape, answer the light, respond to each photographer's vision, and hold their poise at dawn on a dune or in the sand-filled rooms of Kolmanskop as naturally as on any runway.
They are women who know how to move through the world — and through your photographs.
Anna Ramfel
A model who thinks like a photographer. Trained by Luca Monti, Anna Ramfel leads casting and model direction at LPW, and knows every set from both sides of the camera.
Klara
Strong and unhurried, as much at ease on the cold Atlantic coast as in the heat of the dunes.
Julie
Graceful in abandoned rooms: she finds the one gesture a ruin has been waiting for.
§ The Itinerary
The Itinerary
Windhoek — arrival and welcome
Our arrival day is offered as a welcome to the journey: time to settle into our hotel in Windhoek, rest and meet the group. Over dinner, a first conversation introduces the expedition and the relationship between absence, presence and place.
Windhoek — Solitaire — Sesriem
A short morning briefing, lasting approximately half an hour, precedes our departure. We will travel throughout the morning across Namibia’s open spaces, reaching Solitaire in time for lunch. This tiny desert settlement — a petrol station, general store, restaurant and bakery surrounded by old cars rusting in the sand — is one of the most unusual places on the planet to stop for a meal. After lunch, we will remain in Solitaire to photograph the place, its old petrol pumps, the car wrecks and its improbable appearance in the middle of emptiness. In the afternoon, we will continue to our hotel in the Sesriem and Dead Vlei area, where we can finally wash away the desert dust, take a relaxing shower and prepare for dinner. After dinner, we will hold a complete briefing for the following day.
Dead Vlei — first photographic day
At last, we have arrived. Before raising our cameras, we will take a moment simply to be dazzled by the extraordinary beauty of this place. We will spend the entire day photographing in Dead Vlei, carrying with us a lunch prepared by the hotel so that the work can continue without breaking the rhythm of the location. This first day will move between landscape photography and our first work with the models: learning to read the light, scale and silence of Dead Vlei, then allowing the presence of the living body to enter a landscape that seems to exist outside time.
Dead Vlei — second photographic day
On our second full day in Dead Vlei, our attention shifts from the landscape alone to the encounter between body and place. Working in pairs, with one model for every two photographers, we will explore how gesture, skin, scale and stillness can transform the frame without overwhelming the silence that gives the landscape its power. Luca will guide each set closely, from positioning and directing the model to reading the light and constructing the composition. There will be no hurried departure in the afternoon: the entire day belongs to photography, allowing the images to develop rather than forcing them.
Sesriem — Lüderitz
This is a day of travel, not a photographic day. As we leave Sesriem and cross Namibia southwards towards Lüderitz — our base for Kolmanskop — the models, assistants and guides will have time to rest after the intensity of our first two days in the field. The journey also creates a quieter space for reflection. Along the way, Luca will spend time individually with each participant, looking back at the two days in Dead Vlei: what emerged, what proved difficult and what might be carried into the next location. By the time we reach our hotel in Lüderitz, the road will have become a bridge between our first encounter with the desert and the abandoned town that awaits us.
Kolmanskop — first photographic day
Kolmanskop welcomes us somewhere between wonder and the unease of a past that struggles not to disappear. We will spend the day photographing within its sand-filled rooms, corridors and thresholds, allowing the architecture, silence and changing light to guide the work. Throughout the day, Luca will hold individual reviews with every participant, discussing the images as they are being made rather than waiting until the experience has passed. Each photographer will also have a personal working session with Luca on location: time devoted to composition, light, visual intention and the particular questions that emerge while standing inside Kolmanskop itself.
Kolmanskop — second photographic day
On our second day, Kolmanskop is no longer entirely unknown to us. We return to rooms whose light we have already watched, to passages we have crossed and to details that may have escaped us during the intensity of the first encounter. This time, the models enter the abandoned spaces. The relationship between body, architecture and sand becomes the centre of the work, while each participant assumes greater responsibility for the image: choosing the room, recognising its light, directing a gesture and deciding how much of the human presence the photograph truly needs. Luca will remain present throughout the day, but the work will gradually open towards a more personal and independent visual language.
Lüderitz — Meob Bay
We will allow ourselves a gentler beginning to the day, sharing a generous breakfast before setting out towards Meob Bay. Much of the day belongs to the journey and to our gradual approach to the Atlantic, until the desert meets the ocean and our accommodation appears almost like a mirage. From a distance, it resembles a tiny fishing village. In reality, it is a cluster of small chalets standing on an immense and deserted coastline, surrounded by the wrecks, silence and ghosts of the Skeleton Coast. This is not a conventional hotel with a full service staff. Its extraordinary beauty comes with the independence required by such a remote place: each pair will share a chalet and take responsibility for organising its own space and daily routine. The remainder of the day is devoted to arriving, settling into the chalets, becoming familiar with the scale and solitude of the coast and, why not, taking a few photographs.
The coast and its wrecks — first photographic day
Before setting out, we will gather around the map of the Skeleton Coast and its wrecks. Our first step will be to select the sites that speak to us most strongly and that we most want to photograph. We will then begin our work with the models among the broken hulls resting at the edge of the ocean. Iron, salt, wind and the living body will enter the same frame, surrounded by a landscape that seems at once lunar, surreal and almost alien. The entire day will be devoted to photography. We will have time to approach each wreck slowly, understand its scale and discover how the presence of a model can enter that immense emptiness without diminishing its power.
The coast and its wrecks — second photographic day
We will return to the coast with the models for a second full day of photography, continuing our journey among the wrecks selected from the map. By now, the landscape will have begun to reveal its own visual language: the immense horizon, the damaged ships, the movement of sand and the ocean wind passing through everything. We will work within that language, allowing the models to become part of a place that seems to belong neither entirely to the earth nor entirely to the sea. This second day gives us the time to move beyond the first astonishment, refine our compositions and follow the images further — into the strange encounter between human presence, abandoned machines and one of the most extraordinary coastlines on the planet.
Flight to Angola — Moçâmedes
Today, we leave the Skeleton Coast behind and begin the final passage of our journey. After a relaxed breakfast, we will travel to the airport and fly from Namibia to Angola, watching one immense Atlantic landscape give way to another. We will land in Moçâmedes, an important port city and the capital of the Namibe Province. After settling into our hotel, we will have time for a first encounter with the city, its waterfront and the atmosphere of the Angolan coast. If we are fortunate, we may also have the opportunity to encounter Welwitschia mirabilis, locally known as tumboa: one of the most extraordinary desert plants on Earth. With its short, broad trunk and only two enormous leaves, it grows exclusively in the Namib Desert of Angola and Namibia. Some specimens are believed to have survived for more than a thousand years. The evening will be unhurried: a moment to rest, look back at the work created so far and turn our attention towards the last and most extraordinary destination of the expedition — Ilha dos Tigres.
Namibe — Tômbwa — Ilha dos Tigres
This is another day devoted to travel, but the journey itself will become part of the workshop. As we leave Namibe and travel south towards Tômbwa, Luca will spend individual time with each participant, discussing the work produced so far and preparing the photographic direction of the days ahead. In Tômbwa, our attention will turn to the yacht and to the practical preparation of our departure. We will check the photographic equipment, organise the cases and carefully select everything that must accompany us. We will also load the provisions and personal supplies required for four days of work in one of the most remote places of our journey. Once the yacht is ready, we will leave the mainland behind and begin our passage towards Ilha dos Tigres. The crossing marks the final threshold of the expedition: from this moment, the island, the ocean and our photographic work will become our entire world for four days.
Ilha dos Tigres — first photographic day
For the first time in our journey, we will not only be surrounded by the desert but truly isolated within it. Ilha dos Tigres is immense and almost entirely empty: a former fishing settlement of houses, public buildings and abandoned streets, now inhabited only by wind, sand, birds and the sound of the Atlantic. We will begin by exploring the structure of São Martinho dos Tigres and learning to orient ourselves within its silence. The church, the old main street — once also used as an airstrip — and the first sand-filled buildings will introduce us to the visual language of the island. Participants will work in pairs, alternating the roles of photographer and assistant. Luca will move between the teams throughout the day, returning to each pair several times to discuss composition, light and the direction of the work. As mobile-phone coverage cannot be relied upon, every team will remain connected by radio. We will carry a lunch prepared for the day, allowing us to remain in the field before returning to our accommodation in the evening to wash, rest and prepare for the following morning.
Ilha dos Tigres — second photographic day
On our second day, we will move deeper into the abandoned town. The former school, hospital, post office and houses still preserve the scale of the community that once lived here, while sand enters through doors and windows and slowly transforms every interior. Today, the models will join us inside these spaces. Their presence will create a dialogue between the living body and the traces of lives that have disappeared: skin against eroded walls, gesture within empty rooms, movement inside architecture that appears suspended between memory and oblivion. Each pair will develop its own sequence of images, with Luca working individually with the participants throughout the day. We will once again remain on location with our prepared lunch, returning to our base only in the evening.
Ilha dos Tigres — third photographic day
Today, our attention will turn towards the remains of the island’s working life: the abandoned fishing and processing buildings, the maritime structures, the water installations and the ruins that face the ocean. Ilha dos Tigres was once connected to the mainland. In 1962, the sea broke through the narrow strip of sand and transformed the peninsula into an island, severing the pipeline that supplied its inhabitants with fresh water. The buildings we photograph are therefore not simply picturesque ruins: they are the remains of a community whose relationship with the ocean changed in a single night. Working again with the models, we will explore the contrast between human presence, industrial remains and the immense Atlantic landscape. Participants will work with increasing independence, while Luca moves between the teams to challenge decisions, review images and help each photographer take the work further.
Ilha dos Tigres — fourth photographic day
By the fourth morning, the island will no longer feel like an unknown place. Its distances, silences and changing light will have entered our way of seeing, and each participant will have begun to recognise the subjects and spaces that belong most strongly to their own work. This final photographic day will be devoted to completing a personal sequence. Some may return to the church, the cemetery or the abandoned houses; others may work beside the ocean, among the fishing structures or within the buildings slowly disappearing beneath the sand. The models will remain available, but their presence will be used only where it genuinely strengthens the image. Luca will continue to visit each pair, helping participants recognise what is still missing and what no longer needs to be added. We will remain in contact by radio and carry our lunch with us, giving the work the entire day. In the evening, we will return with the knowledge that we have not exhausted Ilha dos Tigres — no photograph could — but that, for four days, we were allowed to enter its silence and construct something of our own within it.
Leaving Ilha dos Tigres — return to Windhoek
We will leave Ilha dos Tigres and begin our return journey, crossing back to the mainland before continuing to the airport for our flight to Windhoek. Within a single day, the abandoned island will give way once again to roads, airports and the inhabited world. By evening, we will be back in the Namibian capital, carrying with us the images, experiences and questions created during four days of complete isolation.
Farewell
Our final morning belongs to farewells: a last breakfast together, the exchange of photographs, promises, laughter, embraces and all the slightly chaotic rituals that accompany the end of a journey lived so intensely. There is no photographic programme today. It is simply time to say goodbye — to the team, to the models, to Namibia and to the companions with whom we have crossed deserts, abandoned towns, oceans and islands. Then come the final handshakes, kisses and embraces, before each of us begins the journey home carrying something that did not exist eighteen days earlier.
§ The Route
The Route
Click to enlarge
§ 06
Accommodation
For our meeting day in Windhoek, we will stay at The Weinberg, a refined boutique hotel where comfort, generous spaces and excellent hospitality will allow us to meet one another, share our welcome dinner and prepare for the journey ahead.
In the Namib-Naukluft National Park, our base will be Sossus Dune Lodge. Staying inside the park will give us privileged access to the desert at the edges of the day, when the dunes emerge from darkness and the last light slowly leaves the landscape. After each day at Dead Vlei, we will return to the quiet of the lodge to rest, dine and prepare for the following morning.
For our work at Kolmanskop, we will stay at the Lüderitz Nest Hotel, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. It will be our place to wash the desert sand from our shoulders, review the work produced during the day and rest before the next stage of the expedition.
On the Skeleton Coast, accommodation becomes part of the experience itself. At NAMAB Camp, near Meob Bay, we will stay in wooden chalets raised above one of the most remote coastlines in Namibia, between the Namib Sand Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The camp provides beds, hot water and electricity, but this is not a conventional hotel: it is an isolated refuge in a landscape of fog, wrecks, sand and ocean. Here, comfort is measured not by distance from the wilderness, but by the privilege of living within it.
Accommodation and operational arrangements for the Angolan section of the expedition will be communicated privately to confirmed participants.
§ Photo Gear
Photo Gear
This is where a real expedition leaves an ordinary workshop far behind, and it is worth saying without modesty.
At the centre of it all: the Hasselblad. The finest camera ever built — medium-format files of breathtaking depth, colour and detail, the tool that turns a photograph into an object you can print two metres wide and lose yourself inside. You will work with it in the desert, in the ruins, on the coast. Few photographers ever hold one. Here it is in your hands.
Beside it travel the great cameras of film, the ones that made the history of landscape and the nude. A Sinar P2 view camera, in both 4x5 and 8x10 — the large format that slows the hand, sharpens the eye and gives a negative no digital file can equal — with 6x9 and 6x12 roll-film backs for the panoramic frame. And the Fuji 6x17 panoramic camera, made for exactly these horizons: the endless line of the dunes, the Atlantic meeting the desert, a whole ghost town in a single frame. And a few other treasures we keep as a surprise for the field.
For the work with the models, we bring the best light control in the world — the full Sunbounce system, like the exceptional Sun-Swatter: mobile shade on a pole that bends the desert sun to our will, the same tools used on the highest-end fashion sets.
Then the lights. We arrive with powerful portable battery power packs, strong enough to balance the sun or overpower it outright, and Profoto B1X monolights. Everything that follows: grip, flags, floppies, filter frames, gels, stands — the full kit. You do not need to carry any of it. We provide the tripods, the monopod, the matte box and the photographic filters. You bring yourself and your eye.
And this is what truly separates a spedizione from a workshop. We travel with Starlink, so we are connected everywhere — even on the island, even at the end of the world. And we bring a complete professional workstation into the field: an Apple computer, a calibrated Apple monitor, and an Epson A2 photo printer. We make magnificent prints on site, on the go — and around those prints we talk, we teach, we show the model her own image, and we take full possession of what we are creating, day after day, while we are still living it.
This is the heart of the expedition. This is not a trip, it is a true international photographic production.
§ Personal Gear
Personal Gear
I have made this expedition many times, and everything here is written from that experience, not copied from a list. When I read those blog packing-lists, all identical, I come out in a rash — because the truth is another thing entirely, and there is a great deal to say. You will find it all in full in the guide and the material we send you before departure. What follows are only the essentials, the things that matter most.
Remember, above everything, that this is an expedition. All of it will be moved, loaded, carried, put on a boat and taken ashore. So bring nothing fragile — no soft, delicate bags. Everything travels in rigid, resistant cases made for an expedition.
Feet. They carry you and your work, so treat them well. You need different footwear for different ground, because it truly is different: the shoreline, the soft sand, the desert. And many changes of socks — more than you think — because dry feet are working feet.
Hands. A photographer's hands are everything, and on an expedition even more. Bring two kinds of gloves: a photographic pair — the English maker Dirty Rigger makes excellent ones — and a good pair of leather work gloves, worn every time and everywhere, so that moving a beam, steadying yourself or touching anything on set or in the ruins of Kolmanskop never costs you a cut or a graze.
Clothing for every scenario. Long trousers and short, shirts, a fleece for the cold mornings. Dress for all of it, and where you can, bring more than one change. Good sunglasses. Hats. And scarves large enough to wrap the whole head against sand and wind — one of them knotted to the strap of your camera bag, always ready, never packed away. That scarf on the strap is the real secret of a well-run expedition.
Skin and eyes. In these places they suffer, and no one warns you until it is too late. Emollient creams for morning and evening, a good hand cream, eye drops. A washbag with your own soap and shower gel; if you wear contact lenses, their fluids, alongside your medicines.
London Photographic Workshop carries all of this as backup — we always do. But bring your own: the things your hands already know, that you are already used to. On an expedition, the familiar is worth more than the new.
What we bring for you. Our welcome package, packed in a waterproof expedition dry bag: local SIM cards, and a loan phone if yours cannot take a second one; a Starlink satellite connection, set up wherever we are, for a call home from the end of the world; a walkie-talkie; a first-aid kit; a satellite locator beacon and an emergency flare for the desert and the coast; a little local currency as pocket money; a laminated emergency sheet with every number you need; a compact phrasebook; pouches for your documents; and your own printed copy of our unique guide.
§ The Light Map
The Light Map
From 14 to 31 March 2027, the route crosses two countries and two clocks. At Sesriem, for our days in Dead Vlei (16–17 March), sunrise falls at approximately 06:58 and sunset at 19:12; at Lüderitz, for Kolmanskop (19–20 March), around 07:02 and 19:10; at Meob Bay (22–23 March), around 07:05 and 19:10. Angola keeps a clock one hour behind Namibia: on Ilha dos Tigres (26–29 March), sunrise is around 06:17 and sunset around 18:18. The equinox falls during the journey, and day and night stand at almost exactly twelve hours each.
The moon grows from first quarter on 15 March to full on 22 March, our first day on the coast, and wanes to last quarter on 30 March. The desert days in Dead Vlei and Kolmanskop carry a strengthening evening moon; on the Skeleton Coast the full moon rises at dusk over the wrecks; on Ilha dos Tigres it rises later each night, returning darkness to the first hours after sunset.
March is the end of the hot season inland. Around Sesriem, daytime temperatures commonly reach the low thirties, with nights near 15–18 °C. Lüderitz and Kolmanskop are tempered by the cold Benguela current, often around 15–23 °C and frequently windy. On the Skeleton Coast, morning fog and a cool sea wind can hold the day near 20 °C, while the Namibe coast of southern Angola is warmer, commonly in the high twenties. These are seasonal ranges, not a forecast.
At Dead Vlei, we will leave Sossus Dune Lodge before dawn so that we are already in position when the first light begins to rake across the dunes. The pale clay pan reflects light upwards while the dark trees hold almost no detail; exposure must therefore be watched carefully, with bracketing or graduated filters used when the contrast requires it. The most dramatic transformation happens quickly, during the first minutes after sunrise and again as the desert begins to cool towards evening.
At Kolmanskop, the light is architectural. It enters through windows, doors and broken roofs, moving across rooms already reshaped by sand. We will follow it through the buildings rather than remain fixed in a single location, working with hard shafts of sunlight, reflected colour and the quieter illumination of the interiors. Each room has its own brief moment.
At Meob Bay and along the Skeleton Coast, fog is not an interruption to the work but one of its essential materials. Morning light may be soft, diffuse and almost without direction; when the cloud opens, wrecks, wet sand and the Atlantic can suddenly produce extreme contrast. We will work with both conditions, watching carefully the highlights on water, skin and corroded metal.
On Ilha dos Tigres, the light belongs equally to desert and ocean. Early and late hours will be reserved for the exposed streets, shore and larger structures, while the stronger middle light can be used inside the church, houses and industrial buildings. Haze, salt and wind may continually alter visibility and colour. Rather than impose a fixed formula upon the island, we will read the light again each morning and allow it to determine the rhythm of the day.
§ Safety & Accessibility
Safety & Accessibility
Travelling together
Photographing places from which life has withdrawn has a rhythm of its own. We arrive as a group, then each person finds their own room at Kolmanskop, their own tree at Dead Vlei, their own wreck on the coast. I want to leave room for these different ways of seeing: exploration belongs to the work.
When you wish to work farther from the place where the group has gathered, you may do so, always in pairs. Here the pair is also the structure of the work, one model for every two photographers, and the two alternate between the roles of photographer and assistant. Each pair will carry a radio. Before moving away, let me know where you intend to work, and we will agree on where and when to meet again. On the coast, the fog erases every reference in minutes; on Ilha dos Tigres, the streets all resemble one another and the sand covers your footprints before you have found your way back.
Planning, discussion & staying informed
Each evening, we will sit down together and look ahead to the following day: the location, the light, the walking distances, the ground, the hour at which the models will enter the work. In the morning, we will return briefly to the plan, considering the wind, the fog and the state of the sea.
I want everyone to understand the day we are setting out into. This is also the moment to say what you think. A climb on the dunes may feel harder than expected; a day on the island may feel too long; a session with the models may simply not appeal to you. Bring it into the conversation. You do not have to justify a concern before sharing it.
This is a photographic experience for the soul, not a course in becoming a hero.
And tell me about the smaller things: a blister, the beginnings of sunburn, tiredness, a foot starting to hurt. In an isolated place, small things do not stay small for long.
The set and the models
The models are at the centre of the work, and this brings rules that apply to everyone, without exception. The set is closed: models and participants are adults; consent is specific and continuous, and a no is never negotiated; phones, spectators and unauthorised behind-the-scenes recording are not permitted. A private space for changing and resting, regular breaks, water, shade and warmth are part of the production, in the desert as on the coast.
The models often work with their skin exposed to sun, wind and cold: their wellbeing takes precedence over the photograph. When I say a session is over, it is over.
Walking: sand, ruins, coast
Dead Vlei is reached on foot, with a final approach across sand and equipment on your shoulders: this is not a level stroll, and climbing the great dunes is another matter again, with steep slopes and real physical effort. No one is obliged to climb.
At Kolmanskop, we will walk on sand-covered floors, through rooms without doors, across worn thresholds and stairways. Some structures are fragile: we do not lean on walls, we do not climb to upper floors unless the boards have been checked, we do not enter where the group has not been led. On the Skeleton Coast, the wrecks are corroded iron, sharp edges and cutting metal: we photograph beside them, not inside them. On Ilha dos Tigres, the buildings have stood abandoned for decades, and no one has made them safe.
Closed footwear with a reliable sole, a bag that sits securely and leaves your hands free, and a walking pole for those who wish to bring one. When something catches your attention, stop before raising the camera.
Vehicles, flight, sea
In Namibia, we will travel in vehicles suited to the distances, and in four-wheel drives where the sand requires them: some transfers are long and on gravel, and can be tiring. Between Namibia and Angola there is a flight. Then, from Tômbwa, a boat crossing to Ilha dos Tigres: the boat is small against the ocean, the coast is exposed, and the sea has the final word on the hour of departure and return. If you are prone to sea sickness, tell us beforehand: the medication is taken before boarding, not after.
On the island, we will remain for several days in complete isolation, with the provisions, the water and the equipment we have loaded ourselves. What is not on board does not exist.
Clothing & climate
The Namib in March is hot by day and cool at dawn; the Skeleton Coast is another world, with fog, Atlantic wind and low temperatures for much of the day; Ilha dos Tigres combines sun, wind and sand that enters everything.
Light, covering clothing for the desert; warm layers and a windproof jacket for the coast; a hat that stays on in the wind; a scarf or a tagelmust to protect the face when the sand rises. In dry air, sweat evaporates before we notice it: keep your water within reach and drink during the natural pauses of the day. A cold wind on the coast does not reduce your exposure to the sun. Broad-spectrum sunscreen, SPF 50 or higher, renewed at least every two hours, even under a grey sky.
If feeling overheated is accompanied by headache, dizziness, nausea, confusion or unusual weakness, stop immediately and tell your companion and me.
Health & assistance
For a significant part of the journey we will be far from medical facilities: the camp on the coast is isolated, and on the island there is nothing at all. Insurance with medical and evacuation cover is compulsory. Bring your usual medication for the whole journey plus a few days, together with the prescriptions. For the Angolan section, consult a travel-medicine clinic about the recommended vaccinations and prophylaxis; the official travel advice for Angola will be reviewed together before confirmation.
Each participant receives a first-aid kit; the production travels with an expedition pharmacy and, on the island, with an evacuation plan agreed with the boat.
If you have dietary requirements, allergies or intolerances, tell us beforehand: on the coast and on the island, we eat what we have brought.
Field guide & communication
Each participant will receive a printed Field Guide: contact details, emergency information, maps, meeting points and the travel guidance for every stage. We deliberately favour paper: on the coast and on the island there is no network.
The welcome package includes a Namibian SIM card, with a loan phone if needed, a radio and, for this expedition, a satellite locator beacon. No device replaces the simple habit of telling me where you are going and when you intend to return.
Accessibility & individual needs
This is a field expedition through remote, unequipped places. It involves soft sand and dunes, ruins that have not been made safe, an isolated camp where each pair manages its own chalet, a flight, a sea crossing and several days on an island without services or medical assistance. Some of these elements cannot be made accessible.
That does not mean every participant must experience the programme in the same way. If a climb, an interior or a session is not suitable for you, we will find an alternative: Dead Vlei can also be photographed from its edge, and a house at Kolmanskop has more rooms than a photograph needs.
If you have mobility requirements, a medical condition, a difficulty with the sea, with heat or with isolation, or any other need that may affect your wellbeing, speak to us before booking. We will examine the itinerary together honestly, considering where adjustments are possible and where the desert, the ocean and the island place genuine limits.
A group is made of individuals, each experiencing the same day differently. Knowing what you need allows me to take that into account, and to give you the attention required to make the journey both meaningful and safe.
§ Travel Conditions
Travel Conditions
The expedition begins and ends in Windhoek, combining road journeys across Namibia, flights between Namibia and Angola, and a sea passage to Ilha dos Tigres. We stay for several days at the principal photographic locations, with dedicated travelling days between them.
From Windhoek, the road takes us through Solitaire to the Sesriem area, our base for Dead Vlei. We then continue south to Lüderitz for Kolmanskop, before travelling onward to our coastal base at Meob Bay. These longer transfers give the group and the production team time to rest between the more intensive days on location.
For the Angolan section, the programme includes a flight journey to Moçâmedes, followed by a road transfer towards Tômbwa. There we prepare the yacht, load provisions and select the equipment and personal luggage needed for the island stay. The passage to Ilha dos Tigres takes us away from the mainland for four full photographic days, so everything required for that part of the expedition travels with us.
After the island sessions, we return by sea to the mainland and continue to the airport for the flight journey back to Windhoek. The final morning is reserved for farewells and onward departures.
Before departure, participants will receive the confirmed flight connections, meeting points, road-transfer arrangements and luggage allowances. We will also provide separate packing instructions for the sea passage and island stay, so that photographic equipment can be organised for each stage without carrying every case into the field.
§ After the Journey
After the Journey
After leaving Namibia and Angola, where the living body met the remains of other worlds, the images ask to return to the group that held that fragile encounter together.
I did not include six months of post-workshop contact by chance, nor as a simple service.
Many years ago, I was teaching an online course that could easily have felt impersonal. Instead, when it ended, the group did not want to dissolve. We had never all sat around the same table, yet years later we are still a living community. From that experience came conversations, magazines, books, friendships and shared ways of looking.
It taught me how valuable a small circle of people can be when they have lived and worked through an experience together.
For this reason, every expedition includes six months of continued contact at no additional cost, and those months are where the photographs are carried to their end, together. A private group keeps the images moving between us: feedback, and a tuition that goes on, fed by cultural prompts — a book, an image, a thought, an exhibition, an occasion that opens a new direction. Each of you brings your images to a master file ready for fine print, and then we sit down, one to one, before the finished work. Then the group meets again, and there is a particular pleasure in it: seeing how far each of us has travelled since we parted. A Second Eye, an editor or a curator, reads the work as the profession reads it. And the work takes form, a collective book or a zine, depending on the event, and a public life, on a gallery wall or in the pages of Follow the Light. The images do not go back into a drawer. They go out into the world, and they go out together.
The event ends. The adventure in photography begins.
§ 04 — The Archive
Frames from Namibia — Angola
A selection of high-resolution frames captured on past expeditions. Select any image to view it full-size.