Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Table Mountain

When I arrived at Cape Town, all I wanted to do was to go shoot the much talked about Table Mountain. I wanted to shoot it from a distance, with the sea in the foreground and the sun setting in the background. I havent got a chance to do that yet. But I did manage to go up Table mountain and shoot the city from top. I went there yesterday at about 12 noon. Came back a bit disappointed. Obviously I knew the light wasn't right. So I made a note to come back one evening during 5 and 6 to catch the light of the setting sun. 






At 5 pm I decided to leave the hotel to find a vantage point to shoot Table Mountain from a distance. I did a quick google and found that Blouberg strand would be a good place to start. I sat in the Audi, fed in Blouberg and zoomed away. Forty minuted later I was completely lost. Blouberg didnt look anything like the place I saw on the net. The sun was setting fast and I knew just had 50 minutes to get a few good shots in. Not wasting any time, I put the car on Sports mode and sprinted towards table mountain. Climbed up finally at 6.15 and managed to get a couple of decent shots. It was way too windy though. I even had trouble getting my tripod to stay still.






Camps Bay

Here's what I did. I rented an Audi. Rented a GPS unit, fed Camps Bay in it and took off. Its one hell of a drive. When driving past, you see mountains on your left and the sea on your right. One thing you got to make sure is that you get here during sunset. 

Now Camps Bay has these certain vantage points which offer you the best view from the top and you can see these when you drive. But forget about stopping and getting your camera out. There is absolutely no place to pull over. If you want to really enjoy it, make sure you take a 10 km walk downhill. It will be tiring but its definitely worth it. Make sure you're armed with a jacket and that you weigh well over 80 kgs. You dont want to get blown away from the strong wind.

I managed to pull over at a few places but wasnt really satisfied with my shots. Got back home and realised I was shooting at ISO 800. That was a bummer. Obviously I noticed a lot of grain in my pictures. Aaaahhh oh well. Here they are.