The place is False Bay, near the Southern tip of Africa. The time is 5:45 am. on January 1st 2000. The new millenium has just announced itself in Cape Town.
For this time of year, an unusual Northerly breeze has smoothed the waters of False Bay. However, clouds are building up from the south. Half an hour earlier, I had been paddling my surfboard on the almost dead calm sea hoping to watch the sun rise, but it was obscured by clouds. By the time I got back to the house, the sun briefly showed itself and I took this photograph. Not long after the picture was taken the clouds again obliterated the sun, and for the remainder of that day it was overcast. In mid-summer!
The place is again False Bay, also mid-summer, but in 1998. Time: about 20 minutes before sunrise. Looking due East the moon is just visible above the mountains in the distance.
The place is Newlands, at the foot of Table Mountain near Cape Town. It is just six a.m. and the houses below remain in shadow as a pink dawn light catches the high eastern buttress of the mountain.
Dawn on the winter solstice, 1998. Fortunately, it is a clear bright day.
The sun rising behind the mountains across the bay is reflected in
the lens of a large telescope.
A build-up of clouds from the north east brings rain over the sea.
Late in the afternoon, the sky has cleared and the last rays of the
setting sun light up the clouds while the beach below is in deep
shadow.
About an hour after sunset, a full moon appears in the east.
(Picture taken with standard PS600 (7mm) lens, shutter 1/135 sec.
f/14.0. Autofocus was pre-set to infinity as camera was held
ready, and shutter was released while following the bird in
optical viewfinder. Tracking the fast-moving bird was made
easier by the fact that swallows tend to fly in circles).
It is a gloomy afternoon on the Sunday before Easter 2001, early autumn in the southern hemisphere. The dark sky forebodes rain: Immensely high above, hundreds of swallows are circling in preparation for their departure to the North. As I strain my eyes to follow the twirling specks, a larger shadow flashes close by my verandah that overlooks the sea, and I can hear the shrill skirling of swallows in their spiral flight nearby. Perhaps an abundance of insects in the still air has brought some of them down for a last feed? They pass just a few meters away, and tracking them with my camera I manage to capture a fine image of one brave little messenger about to go North. Little bird, will you carry my thoughts for me, to those who are far away?