Travel & Culture Gallery - Honorable Mention
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Flow Image © Marsel Van Oosten |
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This image was shot in Kolmanskop, a ghost town in the Namib desert in southern Namibia. It was a small mining village that developed after the discovery of diamonds in the area in 1908, to provide shelter for workers from the harsh environment of the Namib Desert. Driven by the enormous wealth of the first diamond miners the village was built like a German town, with facilities like a hospital, ballroom, power station, school, skittle-alley, theater and sport-hall, casino, ice factory and the first x-ray-station in the southern hemisphere as well as the first tram in Africa.
The town declined after World War I as diamond prices crashed, and operations moved to another town. It was abandoned in 1956 but has since been partly restored. The geological forces of the desert mean that I could walk through houses knee-deep in sand, a surreal experience. This is a great place for photographers for its scenic settings of the desert sands reclaiming this once thriving town. For this image I wanted to show the flow of the sand going from the foreground, through the door, into the room in the background. I pushed my tripod deep into the sand to get a low perspective and waited for a cloud to move in front of the sun to get softer light and lower contrast.
Nikon D2X, AF-S 12-24/4.0 @ 24mm, 2.5s @ f/16, ISO 100, Gitzo tripod
About the Photographer
Marsel van Oosten is an award-winning professional nature photographer from The Netherlands. His images are known for his use of composition, lighting and color. In his work Van Oosten tries to simplify, to get rid of the extraneous: simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
In addition to several First Prizes in the International Photography Awards (IPA), Marsel’s awards include First Prize in the European Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition, First Prize in the Nature’s Best International Photography Awards, and he was a winner in the National Geographic/PDN Travel Photography Awards and the Travel Photographer of the Year Awards. His images are used worldwide in advertising, design, and magazines such as National Geographic, Geo, Audubon and Science Illustrated.
Marsel van Oosten lives in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, with producer and videographer Daniëlla Sibbing. Together they organize specialized wildlife and landscape photography tours & workshops for small groups to spectacular locations worldwide. For an overview of Marsel's work, check out his website: www.squiver.com.
