The Art of It

In a post shortly after our return from a short holiday in Wilderness at the beginning of the year I mentioned that we happened upon a demonstration by international and local motorcycle stunt riders. This unexpected entertainment took place at the Knysna Waterfront in a small area surrounded by the waterfront buildings and the quayside. We stayed to watch and I used the opportunity to test my Cannon S3IS camera's built in "Sport" mode. A few of the pictures captured at this amazing demonstration are posted below. As an enthusiastic motorcyclist for many, many years I was keenly aware of the skill exhibited by these riders. Several of the stunts were performed using special lightweight trials machines designed to traverse "impossible" obstacles as riders compete to negotiate extremely difficult courses without putting a foot down. Each time a rider's foot dabs the ground to keep his balance he loses points. The winner is the rider with the highest poin...

To continue the story of our recent short holiday in Wilderness this is a photograph of The Tops Guesthouse where we stayed and which we used as a base. It is located on the hillside above the village of Wilderness and has magnificent views over the village to the beach and the sea beyond. This was our second stay and we can highly recommend it. The rooms are attractively furnished and comfortable, the view is amazing and it is literally 5 to 10 minutes walk from the centre of the village. The photograph shows Carol sketching the view from our breakfast table on the deck. Our room opened onto this same deck near the tree in the background. Beyond the tree are the beach and the sea, not really visible in this picture, which was taken on a misty morning. The day after we arrived we took a leisurely drive from Wilderness to Knysna . Knysna is a very picturesque town stretching around an magnificent lagoon , which opens to the Indian Ocean. It is a water sports paradise very popular...

A favourite walk of ours in Wilderness is the Kingfisher trail, which meanders along the banks of the Touws River ending at two picturesque waterfalls cascading into a series of pools. These are perfect for a refreshing swim. The trail is around 8km, there and back, through shady forested countryside. National Parks have constructed wooden walkways and stairways through the "difficult" bits to prevent erosion and make the going easy for even us "old" folk. The original pathway, which we first walked several years ago, was washed away in the recent floods and a remarkable job has been done in re-establishing this very popular route. The photographs below show the two waterfalls. They were taken on a beautiful, if rather hot day. In the second photograph I was experimenting with a slow shutter speed to add a sense of movement to the water. Without a tripod I was a little restricted but in the full resolution image it worked reasonably well. Unfortunately down s...

A recent holiday stay in Wilderness provided an opportunity to take some new photographs of this magnificent part of South Africa. I hope to be posting several of them over the next few weeks. Although we frequently visit this area, it's one of our favourite places, changing weather, light, tides and floods (more of that later) provide new photographic opportunities on every visit. This picture was taken on the beach in the early evening of the day we arrrived. It was a cloudy, misty day and I loved the moody feel of the beach

This painting is based on a photograph of the Knysna lagoon taken from a vantage point near the Heads. There was a lot more activity on the lagoon in the photograph. I prefer the simplicity of a solitary boat, which is reminiscent of a less frantic era, before the tourist boom.