§ Workshop — Masterclass
Kolmanskop, Namibia
Departs · 20 September 2027 · 12 days
Participants · 6 · Spots remaining 6
Namibia is not a place one merely travels through. It is a land that tests the gaze. Here, light does not soften; wind does not accompany; silence does not fill the empty spaces. Everything becomes more exact: distance, matter, horizon, time. The desert is not merely a backdrop for the body; it holds it, measures it, and exposes it to the light of silence.
For twelve days, we will work across four territories that seem to belong to four different ages of the same vision: Kolmanskop, Pomona, Dead Vlei, and the Skeleton Coast. This is a workshop devoted to the nude body and landscape, conceived not as a sequence of aesthetic exercises, but as an intense, unhurried, deeply authored photographic experience. Three models will accompany the group from the first day to the last. Three bodies, three presences, three different ways of inhabiting an image. The nude will never be added to the landscape in order to make it more seductive. It will stand as its human counterpart: vulnerable, necessary, alive. It will become a measure of scale, a question placed before the light, a figure capable of revealing what the landscape keeps in silence.
Kolmanskop
The diamond town abandoned to the desert is a geography of memory. Rooms are filled with sand; plaster loses its colour; windows frame a life that no longer exists. Here, the body may appear impossible and yet entirely natural: a contemporary figure within an architecture the desert is slowly reclaiming. We will search for the moment in which a living presence returns the place to its unease, its vanished elegance, its history.
Pomona
Beyond the wire of the Sperrgebiet lies Pomona, a town the diamonds raised and the wind inherited. Iron rusts into the colour of the ground; the rails lead nowhere; a wall still stands only to measure how much the sand has taken back. The desert no longer fights this place — it has begun to breathe it in. Here the body enters as the last witness, spare and unhurried, a living form among the patient remains of a hunger that has passed. We will not photograph a figure before a ruin, but the silence in which abandonment, distance and matter become a single thing.
Dead Vlei
Among monumental dunes and trees dead for centuries, photography encounters an almost absolute form of time. The white of the pan, the black of the trees, the red of the dunes, the severity of the sun: every element reduces the image to its essential terms. Here the body must accept that it is not the protagonist. It must enter into a measure with immensity, find its posture within the light, become a minimal and exact sign before a landscape that seems to exist beyond every human narrative.
Skeleton Coast
Where the Atlantic Ocean and the desert meet without ever becoming reconciled, we will work with mist, wind, salt, and distance. This is a coast of wrecks, remains, and horizons that offer no shelter. In this severe margin of the world, the body will not become a romantic apparition. It will be an exposed, tangible presence, marked by the same fragility as the wreckage and traces the sea returns to the sand.
This workshop is for photographers who wish to take their work beyond the surface of beauty. For those who do not see the nude as a formula, but as a language. For those who understand that landscape is never mere scenery, and that photography, before it becomes style, is a form of attention.
§ Field Notes — Namibia
Four encounters within the same visual expedition: death, abandonment, diamond fever and the coast where the desert enters the sea.
DEAD VLEI · THE ANCIENT SILENCE
01Dead trees rise from the white pan like gestures arrested centuries ago. Around them, the dunes burn red beneath a sky of impossible blue. The three models enter this alien stillness not as decoration, but as fragile measures of life: skin against mineral light, breath against extinction, movement inside a landscape that appears to have survived the end of the world.
SKELETON COAST · FOG, WRECKAGE, WIND
02Along the Skeleton Coast, the ocean disappears into fog and the desert advances towards the tide. Wrecks emerge from the sand like memories without witnesses. Here the three models become fleeting presences among salt, iron and wind: bodies exposed to the same erosion, carrying warmth into a geography where everything seems already lost.
POMONA · DIAMOND FEVER, ABANDONED EARTH
03Inside the Sperrgebiet, Pomona preserves a settlement born from the diamond rush: abandoned houses, narrow-gauge tracks, mine tailings and structures the desert is slowly reclaiming. Among them, the three models become measures of what remains — warmth beside iron, movement inside emptied rooms, living bodies crossing a landscape where wealth once seemed capable of defeating distance and time.
KOLMANSKOP · ROOMS OF SAND
04In Kolmanskop, the desert has entered through every door. Sand climbs staircases, fills bedrooms and softens the architecture of a vanished fortune. Moving through these rooms, the three models become neither ghosts nor symbols, but living interruptions: skin, shadow and breath returning human scale to a town being slowly erased.
§ The Light Map
The Namib in southern spring holds a sharp distance between the coolness of first light and the heat that follows. At Dead Vlei, shadow crosses the pale ground like a temporary boundary. A figure changes the scale of the scene, but the desert does not become a backdrop: its heat, distances and fragile surfaces govern how we work.
From 20 September to 1 October, sunrise near Sesriem moves from approximately 06:49 to 06:37 and sunset from 18:52 to 18:56. Around Lüderitz and Kolmanskop, the corresponding ranges are 06:52–06:39 and 18:55–18:59. Farther north, near Shipwreck Lodge, sunrise falls around 07:01–06:52 and sunset around 19:05–19:08. One clock cannot stand for the whole route.
The moon is waning when we begin, reaches last quarter on 23 September and becomes new on 30 September. Early evenings gain darkness as moonrise moves later; the closing nights carry very little lunar light. This edition therefore progresses towards a darker desert sky, rather than opening with a full-moon session.
Late September belongs to the dry season. Around Sesriem, typical daytime highs are near 30°C, with much cooler nights; heat strengthens towards October. Lüderitz is tempered by the Atlantic, with average September daytime highs around 19°C. Farther up the coast, fog and sea wind create another climate again. Inland heat must never be used as a description of the shore.
At Kolmanskop, windows and sand-filled rooms allow us to work with light that has already crossed a threshold. On the Skeleton Coast, mist can erase the horizon and wind can disturb a composition before it settles. We adjust our pace to each territory, protecting the models from both desert exposure and coastal cold, and leaving the landscape room to contradict the image we brought with us.
§ What You Will Learn
There is a land where light offers no comfort. In Namibia the sun does not caress: it measures. The wind does not accompany: it questions. And the silence does not fill the emptiness, it makes it more precise. You arrive believing you are going to photograph a desert, and you soon realise it is the desert that photographs you.
Here the body is not an ornament laid upon the sand to make it more desirable. It is the only living thing before a world that seems to have outlived the end of everything. At Kolmanskop the sand has climbed the stairs, filled the rooms, softened the architecture of a vanished wealth: and amid that slow collapse, a human figure gives the place back its vertigo. At Dead Vlei, among trees dead for centuries and dunes that burn red, the body must accept that it is not the protagonist, that it becomes the smallest of signs before the immense. On the Skeleton Coast, where the ocean and the desert meet without ever reconciling, skin carries warmth into a geography that already seems lost.
This is what you learn, before any technique: that to look is a form of respect, and that before a landscape so ancient the only honest way to photograph is to take away, not to add.
Over the twelve days you will work, hands-on, on:
We teach you to build light, not to endure it
In the desert, light is not a given — it is a material. It arrives hard, vertical, merciless, bouncing off the sand as if off a burning mirror. An amateur endures it and calls it "beautiful light." We teach you to take it apart, measure it, bend it and rebuild it piece by piece, until it does exactly what you want. Everything that follows is hands-on practice: real tools, rigged on set, under the Namib sun.
1. Measure before you shoot: calibration and metering
You learn to stop trusting the camera's meter — in the desert it always lies: too much reflected light, too much white, too much contrast. We work with the handheld meter:
You leave with a repeatable method of measurement, not a hope.
2. Taming the sun: controlling sunlight
Here is the heart of the craft on a natural set. The desert sun is the most powerful and most ungovernable source there is, and it is governed by subtraction and modulation:
You learn to read shadow as a building material, not as a problem.
3. When the sun isn't enough: artificial light in the desert
We teach why you choose one source over another, faced with that light:
4. Which camera, and why
There is no absolute right camera — there is the right one for that gesture. You get your hands on several systems and understand the reason for each:
5. The set as a film set
Here we take from cinema what photography too often ignores:
Conclusion
By the end of these twelve days you won't have learned "a few tricks." You will have learned to enter an extreme place with the mind of a director of photography: to measure, to decide, to build light and bend the tools to your vision. The desert stays the desert. But you stop photographing it for how it appears, and you begin photographing it for how you see it.
§ Models
Working with the Models
A landscape may wait for centuries. A human body does not.
This distinction lies at the heart of our work in Namibia. The desert can be observed, crossed and revisited; a model is a living person who gives us her concentration, experience, physical presence and trust. She is not an element of equipment, an object placed inside the landscape or a passive surface for someone else’s idea. She is a professional collaborator, and the photograph exists only because a relationship has been established with clarity, respect and consent. The models are with us to work. Their professional availability must never be confused with personal, emotional or sexual availability. Nudity is part of the photographic language of the workshop; it is never an invitation to familiarity.
Photographic direction is made through requests, never commands. You may explain your intention and ask for a different posture, gesture, movement, expression or relationship with the light and landscape. You may show the frame, describe its atmosphere and invite the model to contribute. Every request remains a request. The model may accept it, adapt it or refuse it without explanation. A refusal, a hesitation or visible discomfort is enough for us to change direction. There is no negotiation around a boundary. A model’s refusal is not an obstacle to the photograph. It tells us within which conditions the photograph may honestly exist.
Do not touch a model to correct a pose. Do not move her body, adjust clothing, arrange her hair or remove sand from her skin without first asking and receiving clear consent. Whenever possible, explain the change and allow her to make it herself. Where assistance is necessary, it will be provided by the appropriate member of the team or undertaken only with her agreement. No model will be asked to climb an unstable structure, approach a dangerous edge, remain on hot ground, enter cold water or continue working through discomfort for the sake of an image. Her safety and dignity take precedence over the photograph. Always.
A professional model does much more than hold a pose. She understands balance, gesture and rhythm. She knows how a hand can interrupt a line, how weight changes the body and how a face responds to light. She may recognise tension before the photographer sees it and offer a movement more precise than the one imagined. Direction should be precise enough to establish an intention and open enough to allow another intelligence to enter the photograph.
The nude will be approached as a serious photographic language. It may be used where the relationship between body, landscape, architecture and light requires it. It will never be treated as an automatic escalation, as though removing clothing necessarily made an image more courageous or complete. The model decides what she is comfortable revealing and from which angles she may be photographed. Consent to one pose is not consent to every pose. Consent in one location does not automatically extend to another, and it may be withdrawn at any moment. No photograph is more important than that right.
Namibia asks a great deal of the body. At Kolmanskop and Pomona, sand, dust and damaged structures require careful placement. At Dead Vlei and Sossusvlei, the ground temperature and intensity of the sun can change rapidly. At Pelican Point and along the Skeleton Coast, cold water, fog and Atlantic wind may shorten a session without warning. A model may appear still in the photograph while making a considerable physical effort to remain there. The photographer must learn to recognise this invisible work. Sessions will be organised in short, deliberate sequences. Warm clothing, shade, water, footwear and rest will remain close at hand. When a model needs to cover herself, warm up, drink or recover, the photography stops. Nobody continues making “one last frame” while she is cold, overheated or uncomfortable.
The right to photograph exists only during the agreed session. Models must not be photographed while changing, dressing, eating, resting, warming themselves or attending to personal needs. When a session ends, every camera is lowered. This includes telephones, instant cameras, video and behind-the-scenes material. No participant may make private photographs outside the organised set simply because a model is nearby. No informal, preparatory or behind-the-scenes image may be made or shared without explicit permission.
Speak to the models as professional colleagues. Comments should concern the image, light, gesture, movement or working conditions. Sexual remarks, jokes about the body, intrusive questions, suggestive invitations and comments disguised as compliments have no place in this workshop. Courtesy is not a special achievement. It is the minimum condition of participation. Anyone whose behaviour makes a model feel watched rather than photographed, pursued rather than directed, or obliged rather than respected will be removed from the set. Serious or repeated misconduct will end that person’s participation in the workshop.
Show the model the photographs when it is useful. The back of the camera can become a place of conversation: a way to explain what is working, recognise an unwanted angle, refine a gesture or decide that an image should not be pursued. A model may raise concerns about any photograph in which she appears, particularly where nudity, vulnerability or an unexpected interpretation is involved. Publication, portfolios, social media, exhibitions and every other circulation of the images remain subject to the agreed release and usage conditions. Informal permission given during a conversation does not replace them. The photographer’s responsibility continues after the shutter has closed.
We are working in extraordinary places with professional models who allow their bodies to enter a demanding relationship with sand, abandoned architecture, cold water, wind and light. That trust must be deserved. Be punctual and prepared. Know your camera before the model steps onto the set. Do not leave her exposed while searching through menus, replacing batteries or deciding what you want to photograph. If the photographer is not ready, the model covers herself and waits in comfort. Ask clearly. Listen carefully. Accept a refusal immediately. Respect privacy. Give credit. Protect the person before protecting the image. These principles do not make the work cautious or emotionally distant. Respect creates the safety in which a model can take risks, contribute freely and enter the photograph with genuine presence. We do not make important images by taking more from a person. We make them by creating the conditions in which something can be given freely.
Before she chose our models, Anna Ramfel was one of them. Trained by Luca Monti, she brings to LPW's casting and model direction the knowledge only years in front of the lens can give.
Long lines and a desert patience: she carries the scale of the dunes in a single gesture.
A former dancer who treats sand, wind and ruins as partners in movement.
§ The Itinerary
§ Phase 01
Lüderitz is an improbable town: German houses, dark rock, cold wind and the Atlantic. It has none of the softness of a Mediterranean coast. Its light is more severe, almost mineral, and it asks us to make choices. We will begin here, between the harbour, the architecture of the diamond era, the coast and the first open views towards the sea. It will be a day for finding the rhythm of the group and for making the first sets with the models without forcing anything. We will observe how a figure changes beside rock, how a coloured wall can become a stage, how the wind can remove rather than add. In the evening, we will look at the first photographs together: not to judge them, but to understand where each participant wants to begin looking.
§ Phase 02
At dawn, we will enter Kolmanskop. Its abandoned houses are not picturesque ruins. They are places in which time has become visible. Sand passes beneath the doors, gathers in corners and rises along the walls. The windows admit sharp shafts of light, and each room seems to hold another time. We will work with the models in the interiors, corridors, on staircases and thresholds. The body may appear, disappear, become shadow, reflection or trace. Natural light will be our starting point; then, only when it is necessary, we will work with reflectors, diffusion, flags and flash to construct a more precise balance. This is a day for slow photography. The Hasselblad will allow us to retain detail; the Sinar 4×5 will demand a more deliberate gesture — a photograph considered before it is made.
We return to Kolmanskop at dawn, no longer as strangers to its rooms. The first day has shown us how the light moves, where the sand gathers and which spaces continue to resist an immediate reading. The second gives us the possibility of going beyond astonishment. The models enter the architecture with greater precision. Each participant will choose a room, recognise its particular light and develop a more personal relationship between body, sand and abandoned domestic space. We will work with natural light, reflection and carefully controlled flash only where the image requires it. This return is essential. It allows us to correct, deepen and sometimes abandon the first idea. The task is not to repeat yesterday’s photographs, but to discover what only becomes visible after we have learned how to wait.
§ Phase 03
We will enter the Sperrgebiet, the protected territory that holds the hardest memory of the diamond rush. Our confirmed permits allow us to reach Pomona and Bogenfels: two places very different in appearance, yet profoundly connected by the history of this land. At Pomona, we will photograph what remains of a mining settlement: buildings, iron, railway tracks, scarred walls and structures that the desert has ceased to fight and has begun to absorb. Here, work with the models will be spare and considered. We will not seek a figure placed in front of a ruin, but a relationship between body, distance, abandonment and material. We will then reach Bogenfels, where limestone opens above the Atlantic like a threshold. Sea, wind and fog radically alter the scale of the landscape. With the Fujifilm GX617 panoramic camera, large format and Hasselblad, we will work with the horizon, the relationship between emptiness and figure, and the meeting of human fragility with an indifferent geology.
§ Phase 04
We leave the southern coast and travel towards Sossusvlei. The journey will not be an interval between two places to photograph; it will be part of the work. Distances in Namibia teach us how to look. The road, the gravel plains, the slight shifts in colour, distant mountains and tracks are already images. We will stop where the landscape asks us to. There will be opportunities for small travel sequences, photographs without the models, and notes on light and matter. We will arrive at the lodge towards late afternoon, as the desert begins to withdraw from the sun.
§ Phase 05
We will enter Dead Vlei while the light is still low. The white ground, trees darkened by time and red dunes create a place that appears to belong to another scale of the world. Here, photography demands precision. A figure can become almost infinitesimal; a hand, a face or a line of the body can instead change the perception of the entire landscape. We will work with the models without chasing effect. The body, nude when it is necessary to the work and agreed with care, will be a living form in dialogue with dead trees, sand and sky. This day will be dedicated to natural light, composition, and the relationship between detail and vastness. The landscape will not be a backdrop; it will be a presence with which to enter into dialogue.
§ Phase 06
We will return to the desert, but to a different place, under another light and with another intention. Dunes are not still: they change colour, absorb shadow, reveal a ridge and then erase it. We will work with lines, passages and footsteps that the wind removes. The models may enter the landscape in fabric, minimal dress or nude, according to the language each participant is developing. Hard sunlight will become a material to work with. Portable flash, Bowens packs, Sunbounce, Lee filters, Matthews flags and diffusion will allow us to decide when to let the light dominate, and when to introduce a deliberate counterpoint. At sunset, the group will return to review the photographs and prepare the images that have not yet been made.
§ Phase 07
We travel towards Walvis Bay and Pelican Point. The landscape changes slowly, then all at once: the absolute dryness of the desert gives way to ocean, humid air, salt and fog. In the afternoon, we will make our first work along the coast. We will not yet try to possess the place; we will allow it to alter us. The human figure will be small, at times almost lost in the mist. The photographs may become less certain, quieter, closer to breath than declaration.
§ Phase 08
Pelican Point is an unstable boundary. Dunes, beach, sea, wind and fog continually overlap. Here, the desert does not end: it reaches the water, and the sea seems to move back into the sand. We will work at dawn, when the fog can erase distance and turn a figure into a presence with almost no contour. With the models, we will look for suspended images: body and landscape not separated, but held within the same light. Where expressly permitted, aerial work with drone and FPV will allow us to read the lines of the coast and the scale of the territory. On the ground, large format and panoramic photography will ask for another kind of attention: slowness, position and waiting.
The second day on the coast will be dedicated to more physical work. Wind, damp sand, the sound of the sea and the cold of the Atlantic enter the image. They are not things to correct, but part of its truth. We will use artificial light only where it has a reason to exist: a flash against a grey sky, a figure drawn out of fog, a small construction of light within an immense natural space. Profoto and Bowens will be instruments of measure and contrast, never special effects. That evening, we will begin to gather the material and recognise possible sequences: photographs that speak to one another, photographs that need to stand alone, empty spaces that need to remain empty.
§ Phase 09
We move towards Shipwreck Lodge, on the Skeleton Coast. Here, Namibia reaches an even sparer form: sand, ocean, wind, wrecks and sky. There is almost nothing, and precisely for that reason, every element carries weight. In the late afternoon, we will begin photographing around the lodge and along the coast. The landscape does not need much; it asks for exactness. A distant wreck, a dune, a figure at the edge of the light, a trace already being erased by wind. We will work with the models in an even more essential way. The body will be an exposed presence — small, yet capable of changing the measure of space.
The final day will not be a forced conclusion. We will return at dawn to the coast and dunes to work on photographs that remain open. Some may seek a larger image; others a detail; others may simply look. During the day, we will review the work made throughout the journey. Each participant will begin to construct a personal sequence: not a catalogue of places, but a set of photographs capable of holding an experience, a distance, an encounter. That evening, our final night at the Lodge will be a moment for sharing and reflection. We will not celebrate only what we have achieved. We will also ask what Namibia has made more difficult to photograph — and therefore more necessary to seek.
§ Accommodation
London Photographic Workshop offers thirteen nights of accommodation for the group, from arrival on Sunday 19 September to departure on Saturday 2 October.
The twelve-day photographic programme runs from Monday 20 September to Friday 1 October. The final two days carry the journey deeper into the Skeleton Coast, allowing the group to inhabit Shipwreck Lodge without reducing it to a hurried overnight stop.
On Sunday evening, we gather for a welcome dinner offered by London Photographic Workshop.
It is the first shared table of the journey: the beginning of the conversation that will accompany the photographs.
In Lüderitz, the group will stay at the Lüderitz Nest Hotel, set directly on the Atlantic and ideally placed for our work in Kolmanskop.
Its sea-facing rooms form a natural threshold between the inhabited coast and the architecture being reclaimed by sand.
For the Dead Vlei chapter, we will move to Sossusvlei Lodge, positioned at the entrance to the Namib-Naukluft Park.
Here, accommodation becomes part of the photographic method. Sleeping close to the gate allows us to organise the day around the first light, when shadow, dune and ancient tree find their most exact relationship.
At Pelican Point Lodge, the group will inhabit the narrow peninsula of Walvis Bay, between Atlantic water, fog, wind and desert.
Small, isolated and exposed to the elements, it provides the first threshold to the coastal chapter.
The journey then continues north to Shipwreck Lodge, deep within the Skeleton Coast National Park.
Reached through Möwe Bay and a final passage across remote terrain, the lodge is not simply the last accommodation of the workshop. Its cabins, shaped like vessels stranded in the dunes, become part of the visual narrative itself.
Two nights are reserved here, giving the group time to enter the silence of the coast rather than merely pass through it.
§ The Equipment
§ Photo Gear
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 makes the journey different. We travel with Starlink, so we are connected everywhere — even on the Skeleton Coast, 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.
§ Personal Gear
I have worked in Namibia many times, and one of the first things the country teaches you is that distance is never an abstract idea. You feel it in the hours spent on the road, in the dust that settles over the vehicles, in the temperature that changes as the desert approaches the Atlantic, and in the moment when you realise that what was perfect for the heat of Sossusvlei is completely inadequate in the fog of the Skeleton Coast.
This is not a journey for dressing according to a generic idea of Africa. Namibia contains several climates within the same itinerary, and we will pass through all of them. We will move from the cold ocean air of Lüderitz to the sand-filled rooms of Kolmanskop; from the mineral ground of Pomona and the exposed rock of Bogenfels to the heat of the Namib; from the white pan of Dead Vlei to the wet sand, salt and fog of Pelican Point; and finally to the beautiful isolation of the Skeleton Coast.
You do not need to bring an enormous wardrobe. You need to bring the right things, chosen intelligently, because every unnecessary object will eventually have to be lifted, carried, loaded and unloaded.
We will move frequently, and some transfers will be long. Our luggage will travel in jeeps and support vehicles together with photographic cases, lighting equipment, tripods, water, supplies and the bags of the rest of the group. It will be loaded and unloaded repeatedly, placed beside other cases and secured for roads that are not always gentle.
For this reason, I strongly advise against soft, shapeless suitcases. They collapse when stacked, protect very little and become awkward every time the vehicles must be reorganised. Bring one strong, compact piece of main luggage: a good hard-sided suitcase or a genuinely robust structured expedition bag, with dependable handles, closures and wheels.
Do not bring an enormous case simply because the airline allows it. Space inside a vehicle is shared space. A suitcase that is unnecessarily large quickly becomes a problem for everyone, and after the third long transfer you will understand why I am insisting on this now.
Your main luggage will remain at the lodge or in the vehicle. In the field, you should carry a smaller bag containing only what you need for that particular day. I have seen photographers exhaust themselves before the light became interesting because they insisted on carrying every lens, every accessory and every possibility. Namibia rewards preparation, but it punishes unnecessary weight.
People imagine Namibia and think immediately of heat. Then they arrive in Lüderitz.
The cold Benguela Current brings damp air, fog and sharp Atlantic wind. A morning that begins beneath a grey sky can become unexpectedly warm when the sun opens over the rock, so the only intelligent solution is to dress in layers.
Bring a breathable base layer, a warm fleece or compact insulated jacket, a windproof shell and a lightweight waterproof jacket. A proper scarf, buff or shemagh will protect the neck and face here, and later from dust and moving sand. You will also need a warm hat for the coast and a wide-brimmed sun hat secured against the wind.
At Kolmanskop, sand covers floors and hides changes in level. Pomona adds gravel, abandoned tracks, corroded metal and mining structures exposed to decades of wind. These are real abandoned environments, not studios dressed to resemble them.
Wear flexible long trousers and tested walking shoes or lightweight boots with a reliable sole. Bring strong work gloves for cases, tripods, rock and rough surfaces, together with a close-fitting technical pair that still allows you to operate the camera. A compact kneeling pad may also be useful on gravel, hard earth and sand-filled floors.
Nothing should be climbed, moved or used for support without the approval of our authorised guide. Protective clothing helps us work responsibly; it does not make an unstable structure safe.
At Bogenfels, the desert reaches the Atlantic without offering much shelter. The ground is uneven and the wind can change the physical experience of the place within minutes.
Wear footwear with a reliable grip. Secure your hat and sunglasses, and keep loose straps and garments under control. Your windproof layer must remain accessible rather than buried in the vehicle: by the time you decide you are cold, the light may already be doing precisely what we came to photograph.
We may leave before sunrise in cold air and work later beneath a dry, severe sun. Bring light, breathable layers that can be removed gradually, together with a loose long-sleeved shirt, a wide-brimmed hat, high-quality sunglasses, water-resistant sunscreen and protective lip balm.
Heavy boots quickly become tiring on dunes. A lightweight closed walking shoe, possibly combined with low gaiters, offers better support while keeping most of the sand outside. Bring several pairs of technical socks and keep one completely dry pair in the daily bag. In the Namib, protecting the feet is part of protecting the working day.
At Pelican Point, we may work in wet sand and shallow water, surrounded by fog, salt and cold Atlantic wind. Bring quick-drying shorts or light trousers that can be secured above the knee, together with water shoes or closed sandals that remain firmly attached to the foot. Flip-flops and bare feet are not suitable.
Keep a compact microfibre towel, dry socks and a complete dry lower layer in the vehicle. A small dry bag or waterproof pouches should protect telephones, documents and batteries. Once you leave the water, the warm layer and windproof jacket must be immediately available.
The Skeleton Coast brings together fog, cold wind, moving sand and great distance from ordinary services. Here you will need the complete system: breathable layers, a warm fleece, windproof jacket, lightweight waterproof shell, warm hat, scarf and secure footwear.
Bring a headlamp, preferably with a red-light setting, and a comfortable dust mask or protective face covering. Personal medication must remain in the daily bag, never inside luggage that may be inaccessible during a transfer.
Bring strong work gloves and a second pair of technical gloves for the camera. Bring more socks than you think you need. Bring a proper scarf. Bring one pair of footwear for rock and ruins, another lighter closed pair for sand, and water shoes for the coast. Bring quick-drying shorts, long trousers, a warm layer, a windproof layer and a compact waterproof shell.
Bring a clean, light pair of shoes for the lodges and for the hours when the field shoes are full of sand, wet or drying. Your feet also need to understand that the working day has ended.
Bring a refillable water bottle or hydration system that you can use without removing the entire bag. Bring a compact towel. Bring sunscreen, protective lip balm, a headlamp and waterproof pouches. Bring clothes that can become dusty, wet and marked without making you anxious. This is a working journey, not a sequence of arrivals at hotel receptions.
Above all, bring equipment that you already know. The desert is not the place to discover how a new boot fits, how an unfamiliar bag balances, or whether a jacket actually stops the wind.
Every morning, we will decide what the place requires. The daily bag should normally contain water, sunscreen, lip protection, sunglasses, a secured hat, scarf, gloves, a warm layer, the windproof or waterproof shell, personal medication, one dry pair of socks, a headlamp, telephone, emergency information and the photographic equipment selected for that location.
For coastal days, add water shoes, a microfibre towel, dry clothing and waterproof pouches.
Do not carry your entire photographic life because you are afraid of choosing. Choosing the equipment is already part of making the image. Weight affects balance, patience and concentration. A bag that is too heavy changes the way you look long before it stops the way you walk.
Over many years of organising workshops and expeditions, I have learned that the objects most urgently needed in the field are often not the impressive ones. They are the small, practical things that nobody remembered, that cannot be found after arrival, or that become essential precisely when the ordinary systems stop working.
For Namibia, every participant will receive the LPW personal expedition package.
There will be a local SIM card with a Namibian number and data plan. If your telephone cannot accept a second SIM, we can provide a loan telephone. We will travel with Starlink and deploy it at the bases where conditions and logistics permit, because in some of the places we reach the mobile network disappears long before the photographic work does.
You will receive a walkie-talkie for communication when there is no mobile signal, laminated emergency information with all essential contacts, protective waterproof pouches for documents and personal objects, a compact language aid and a small amount of local currency for immediate practical needs.
Our operational equipment includes a complete first-aid kit and, where the territory requires it, satellite location and emergency-signalling systems.
And you will receive the LPW Namibia Travel Guide.
It is not a generic booklet and it is not a collection of information copied from the internet. It is the distillation of the journey itself: the places we enter, their histories, the light we expect to encounter, the people and permissions that make access possible, the practical knowledge needed in the field, and the photographic questions that accompany us from Lüderitz to the Skeleton Coast.
It has been conceived specifically for this expedition and for the way we work. It is something to read before departure, to annotate on the road, to keep beside the camera and to return to after the photographs have been made. It is part field manual, part cultural preparation, part photographic notebook and part memory of the journey—an LPW object created for those who will actually be there.
The complete package will be presented inside a robust waterproof expedition bag, ready to travel with us.
I am telling you all this now because in Namibia preparation is not separate from photography. Preparation is what allows you to remain calm when the wind rises, when the temperature falls, when the sand enters everything, when the fog removes the horizon—and when the light finally becomes so extraordinary that leaving would be unthinkable.
§ Travel Conditions
This is a field-based photographic workshop. Days are shaped by light, weather, access conditions and the pace required for serious work in the landscape. The published sequence gives the intended creative rhythm of the week; exact timings, routes and locations may be adjusted by the teaching team and local production partners when conditions require it.
The programme includes long road transfers and time outdoors in desert, coastal and sandy environments. Participants should arrive prepared to work patiently, to carry their own equipment over short distances and to accept that some of the strongest photographic moments emerge outside a fixed timetable.
Before departure, participants will receive the final practical notes: meeting point, recommended clothing, equipment guidance, individual travel planning and any location-specific requirements confirmed for the workshop.
§ Safety & Accessibility
In Namibia, space is part of the landscape, and the journey deserves time of its own. On suitable roads, we will travel in VIP vans, such as high-specification Mercedes Sprinters or Vito; long distances and gravel sections call for unhurried transfers, sometimes over bumpy ground.
Sandy access routes will require appropriate vehicles or authorised local services, to be arranged according to the itinerary and park rules. Some photographic locations will still involve walking. If included in the programme, Deadvlei requires a final approach on foot across sand: a different experience from climbing the large dunes, which involves slopes and greater physical effort.
Even on short walks, soft sand, sunshine and camera equipment affect comfort and pace. Closed footwear, water and sun protection are essential. Walking times and difficulty will be given for each outing, allowing additional time for photography.
If you have specific mobility needs or find gravel-road transfers difficult, speak to us before booking so that we can assess the planned activities together.
§ Post-Workshop
After leaving Kolmanskop, where sand entered rooms and the desert measured the body against silence, the images ask to be shared with those who stood within that exacting light 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 workshop 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.