Some landscapes impress you once. Others stay with you and change each time you return. For me, the Drakensberg has always belonged to the second kind.
A landscape that never stays still
The mountains can feel enormous and severe, then become soft under morning light. Snow changes the familiar ridges. Wetlands turn gold. Reflections briefly make the landscape feel perfectly still. The geography remains, but the mood is never fixed.
Walking into scale
A photograph can show a mountain, but a person walking through the frame shows its scale. Paths, hikers and small details such as a protea bring the immense landscape back to something human.
The pull of familiar places
Returning with a camera is not about trying to repeat an old photograph. It is about seeing what is different, including what is different in yourself. Perhaps that is why certain landscapes become personal. You stop simply visiting them. They become part of the way you remember a country.
Explore more: Continue through the Drakensberg photography collection, or explore South Africa.
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