A recent fire destroyed much of the vegetation on the slopes of a portion of Table Mountain. The route for the 2018 Old Mutual Two Oceans Marathon Trail Runs traversed this area. I was out there shooting some images of the race and noticed the green shoots of the new vegetation emerging out of the charred landscape.
Table Mountain was lit up in Blue Light on Wednesday 15th February to commemorate International Childhood Cancer Day. I was out there last year to take some shots of the occasion, so when I heard the mountain would once again be lit up in Blue this year, I was keen to go again. Last year, I shot some images of the blue mountain from the approach road, with red light streaks of cars leading into the shot. This time I wanted to do something very similar, yet different. Only problem was, a large component of my plan was out of my control.
The plan was to try and get the light trails to be higher up in the image than last years image, this would require something larger than a car, not exactly easy to organise after 9pm on a weekday, along Table Mountain Road, which is mostly deserted other than the few people coming off the last cable car down the Mountain. I set up my camera on the tripod, worked out the angle I wanted, and waited for something large enough to arrive. Due to bright lights from oncoming traffic, shutter actuation had to be carefully timed, to prevent overexposure. The odds of getting everything sequenced, large vehicle driving past slow enough, with high level lights illuminated, no oncoming traffic, releasing shutter on time, shutter open duration, waiting for all pedestrians to pass etc was proving to be an extremely tall order. After numerous attempts that I was not happy with, I decided to call it a day. Shortly before I packed up, I heard something that sounded like it was larger than a car, so I figured perhaps just one more exposure! With fingers crossed 🙂 I pressed the shutter shortly before the bus entered the scene I’d set up for, there were no pedestrians or oncoming cars, high level lights and interior lights were on, and the bus was travelling at a decently slow speed. The shutter closed, I glanced at the rear screen, and there it was :-):-). Against the Odds is the prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week, and images of the Blue lit Mountain, together with my Final shot are my response to the prompt.
……..the journey continues………
Nestled at the foot of and in the shadows of Signal Hill, bordered by the Waterfront development and the Harbour, the tallest buildings of the Inner City of Cape Town are confined to a relatively small footprint. Largely unchanged for many years, there have been a few newcomers, including Portside, the tallest of them all. Local is prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week, and images of the Inner City of Cape Town, are my response to the prompt.
……..the journey continues………..
The Sanlam Cape Town Marathon, held last week, saw a field of 8000 marathon runners take to streets of Cape Town, each on a quest to conquer, perhaps a personal best, their first marathon, maybe their 10th, or maybe a sub 3 hour run. The fast flat route wound it’s way through some of the most significant sites in the City. It turned out that winner Asefa Mengstu Negewo of Ethiopia was on a quest of his own, he broke the long standing South Africa Marathon record, with a finishing time of 2:08:42. Quest is the prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week, and images of the Start and Finish of the Marathon are my response to the prompt.
………..the journey continues…………
Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens a stonesthrow from Cape Towns City Centre, boasts an elevated Treetop Canopy Walkway that enables you to weave your way through the upper branches of a thick woodland. The 130m long segmented steel and timber slatted walkway mostly referred to as the “boomslang” (tree snake) curves and winds its way through the trees, resembling a snakes skeleton. Starting off at Ground level, this wheelchair friendly walkway, slowly ramps up into the treetops affording wonderful views of the Table Mountain Range and the surrounding suburbs of the City. Curve is the prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week and image of the “boomslang” are my response to the prompt.
……the journey continues……….
Reflections of the Vibrant colours of moored Fishing Trawlers at Hout Bay Harbour, appear to blend themselves into the ripples of the water. The weekly photo challenge prompt for this week is Vibrant, “to keep the winter gloom at Bay”. The bright sunny days in the Southern Hemisphere, certainly added another dimension to these vibrant reflections.
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Here in the Southern Hemisphere, its starting to feel like the song “Happy days are here again”, the sun is making it’s way back, warming everything up again, days are getting longer, people are heading to the beaches etc. The last cable car down from Table Mountain is shortly after sunset, and considering its one of my Happy Places where I am able to get away from the hustle and bustle of the City after work on a Friday, into the quiet world above the City and have a relaxing start to the weekend. As the sun starts to set, the landscape recedes, and the illuminated City starts becoming visible. Happy places is the prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week, and images of my visit to the Mountain yesterday are my response to the prompt.
……..the journey continues…..
The routes for the 2015 Sanlam Cape Town 22km and 11km Trail runs allowed runners to rise above the urban environment and immerse themselves in the sights and sounds of nature along the trails of Signal Hill and Lions Head. These are some glimpses at the start of both these events. Images will be added incrementally, 11 km Peace trail run images to follow.
High resolution versions of all images are available for ordering on request by emailing 4otomo@gmail.com
More images to follow..
Images of 2015 Cape Town Marathon 42.2km can be found at this link…
https://4otomo.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/2015-sanlam-cape-town-marathon-glimpses/
Images of 2015 Cape Town 10km Peace Run can be found at this link…
https://4otomo.wordpress.com/2015/09/20/2015-sanlam-cape-town-10km-peace-run-glimpses/
…. click on a single image to view slide show of all images.
As the sun starts heading towards the horizon, street lights on the larger roads leading into and out of Cape Town slowly become visible. From the top of Table Mountain, they appear like “illuminated” pearls on strands of a necklace, that appears to become longer as darkness slowly begins to take over. Before long numerous other smaller strands of lights start becoming visible. The collection of these numerous strands start transforming themselves into an illuminated necklace. At first glance the “necklace” appears as an intricate, complicated array of lights, but on closer inspection, the pattern emerges,. Larger National and Regional roads stand out as they lead right into and out of the City, Suburban and District roads branch off these and this hierarchy keeps reducing until individual streets start becoming visible, like major strands that are connected to one another by this hierarchy of smaller strands. Images of this “illuminated necklace” are my response to the “Connected” prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge this week….
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Spring has Sprung. Here in the Southern Hemisphere, Spring is very much in the air. Days are getting longer, and warmer, and one can sense the end of Winter is near. It hasn’t been a particularly cold miserable winter, but I suppose one tends to forget as evidence of better weather patterns start emerging. Yesterday was forecast to be one of those good days, which provided the perfect opportunity to visit the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens outside Cape Town’s city centre. I arrived there shortly after sunrise, to take advantage of the early morning soft light, that does so much to highlight Nature’s wonders, and went back shortly before the sun disappeared behind the mountain. Today was a good day, is this weeks prompt on the Weekly Photo Challenge, and images of my Good Day at Kirstenbosch are my response to the prompt.
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…………………the journey continues……………….
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