One thing about Sousouvlei, daily life is a struggle against all odds. Yet many plants and animals make this shifting landscape their home and take advantage of any drop of water or pause in the dunes movement. But even when a plant gets a toehold or enjoys a few years of life, survival isn’t a sure thing, not like the heat and the intensity of the sun.

Most of my photography involves people: people at work, people at play, people in conflict, so when I got to Namibia I couldn’t believe the space, empty space. There are people in Namibia, but with a density of 1.5 per square kilometre, not too many. It is a country of vast landscapes and scenes that most people only see in their dreams. There are roads that don’t make a turn until they dip below the horizon. Mountains that just pop up in the middle of the desert, alone and dusty. And then there are the sand dunes like this one at Sousouvlei- row upon row of dunes that top a 1000 feet. A great place to photograph. A great place to test Nikon’s new sensor shaking dust removal method. I changed lenses a lot and it was dusty all the time. Not a speck of dust came home with me. Great news from the digital side of things.

And who said it was a clean and tidy job. I was travelling through Namibia in February with my friend Steve at the helm of his 1997 Land Rover Defender- no air-conditioning and temps nearing 50 at times, and that means desert everywhere. So in this pic I have just got out of bed after a big windstorm in the evening which filled my tent, almost literally with sand. I guess I had some sun block on as well, so the sand and dirt was able to plaster itself to my face. And not wanting to waste any precious water we headed off into the dunes at Sousouvlei without a look in the mirror. It was an Irish woman who asked me if I had a face cloth. I guess she didn’t like the Humphrey-Bogart-after-a-hard-weekend look. Seemed right for the place. And auto focus and a wide-angle lens made this shot possible.