Zeiss Infinity Tour - South Africa
/Cape Town - The Mother City
Located in the Western Cape province in South Africa, the city's name is derived from the world famous and steep Cape of Good Hope cliffs. Cape Town’s history and natural beauty attracts more foreign visitors than ever before. With over 3700 hours of sun, rich cultural diversity and a breathtaking natural landscape, it offers unique locations for landscape and portrait photography.
For my third stop on the ZEISS Infinity Tour, I’m going to introduce you to an African city rather than a country.
I was invited to conduct a workshop in Cape Town, the primate city of the Western Cape province in South Africa. It was a quite short trip, and I only had four days to explore this fantastic location situated on the shore of Table Bay.
I was fascinated by how modern Cape Town is: this pulsating, vibrant city has a vivid urban flair surrounded by beautiful ocean scenery. Of course, as a landscape photographer, I was quite keen to capture with my lens the many memorable perspectives this city offers. Any landscape photographer who has visited Cape Town will mention the world-famous Table Mountain and Signal Hill as unique highlights.
Table Mountain, the natural landmark overlooking the city, offers an epic view of the metropolis below and was chosen as one of the new 7 wonders of nature in 2012.
As for Signal Hill, when you look at it together with the Lion’s Head, people claim that it looks like a sphinx.
For the practical part of our workshop, we decided to shoot Table Mountain and Lion’s Head from Signal Hill. I decided to use the ZEISS Milvus 15mm lens, which is generally my go-to lens for most of my landscape images. And I must admit that we were quite lucky in terms of timing.
Just one day earlier, there had been a thunderstorm. For a photographer, there is nothing better than the time before, after and sometimes even during the storm. I had a good view from my balcony the night of the storm and was able to capture the lightning as it spread like roots through the clouds
The second morning, we witnessed the sun piercing through the vanishing storm clouds, creating amazing sunset scenery. It is worth mentioning that in South Africa there’s a huge community of photographers. Some of the participants who attended my workshop traveled from neighboring countries, but the majority came from South Africa. I asked Leslie for her view of infinity, and she brought yet another perspective to my attention. For her, timelessness best encapsulates her understanding of infinity. I suspect this comes from the rich and moving history of Cape Town where she’s a resident.
There is a huge art scene and a lot of galleries, and I guess this has a lot to do with the diverse cultures found in South Africa in general. You should definitely plan to visit the various boutiques and galleries for inspiration when you visit!
I will definitely visit Cape Town again and will certainly stay for longer next time. But before I end this blog, I would like to add something I just learned: I didn’t know that there are penguins in South Africa! A visit to Boulder’s Beach might be interesting to see these little creatures and take some nice shots - not only of the penguins, but also of the beautiful scenery during a sunrise.
During the workshop in Cape Town, we had an awesome support from Singer Photography at all level, they provided all type of Zeiss lenses to the participants for testing. I was using all the time my favorite Zeiss Milvus ultra wide angle, 15mm on Nikon mount.
