Autumn In De Doorns

At eight o’clock this morning I was on the road to De Doorns; the weekend traffic on the N1 was already hectic, with enormous trucks from the North making haste to get to Cape Town before the weekend. 

At first, I thought the valley was under a blanket of mist, which would make interesting pictures, but as I neared, the mist became denser and bluer, and I realised it was smoke.  Literally dozens of fires were blazing, some in the informal township right on the road, but surprisingly the majority were in the vineyards.   I haven’t spoken to anyone to ask whether these fires are intentional or for warmth, as maintenance work has already started, workers are hard at work, and the mornings are already chilly.

The autumn colours of the vineyards are an iconic subject to photograph in the Boland, and I aimed to capture their essence with my camera.

I wound my way through the farms and took a few photographs. It’s not quite the right time yet, so I’ll have to make a return trip in three or four weeks. Hopefully, we’ll have some snow early in the winter, as that lifts the photograph to another level.

I tried to capture the smoke, which looked like fine spiderwebs wafting in a breeze.  I used a narrow aperture of f/18 and ISO 100; standing close to the N1, I aimed to be discreet, shooting handheld to avoid disturbing the scene and to showcase my technique.

At one roadblock, I spotted a troupe (collective noun I’ve just made up), or is it a gang of bikers in full regalia?  I grabbed the camera and took one shot before we were waved through; I didn’t want to annoy this lot at all. I’ve heard everything about biker gangs!

Taking the morning off from doing tedious chores at home was great and almost felt like a mini break. The beautiful Labrador was far too exuberant for me to capture without the "motion" blur, and his partner in crime was jumping up against me too.   The cloudy moon, still high in the sky, was just so big and round and gorgeous I had to take a picture; it was late in the day, so it looked like a balloon drifting amongst the wispy clouds.

Don McCullin’s advice for stronger images. “Borrow from the past, how painters and musicians do.   It’s not a crime so long as you don’t plagiarise.”  Have a look at this legendary photojournalist's work.  Truly magnificent.