Evidence of Mankind

Evolution No.5

In the Sperrgebiet, the closed diamond zone on Namibia's coast, lies the Bohlen, stranded in the early 1900s. Her owners once tried to let her out as a hotel. Almost a hundred years on, jackals make their dens in her hull. Koos had special permission to travel this coast with a guide from Lüderitz to the Kunene, a month long journey, and one morning sea mist came in behind the wreck while the sun was already on her. He had minutes.

As I finished, the mist lifted.— Koos van der Lende

Ox Wagon

North of Lüderitz, in the diamond rush, men and supplies came in by ship and small boat, and wagons like this one carried them to the diggings in the dunes. It is perhaps eighty years old. No private visitors are allowed here, so everything has been left exactly as it was. Koos waited for the last light behind him, then lit the wagon himself with a lamp as the evening fell.

Everything is very well preserved. You may look, but do not touch.— Koos van der Lende

Watering Point

Twelve kilometres outside Aus, on the edge of the Sperrgebiet, stand the tanks that once filled the steam trains on the line from Lüderitz inland to Keetmanshoop. A strange sight in the open desert, almost like something from Mad Max. Since then the railway has been rebuilt and the old station house pulled down, and the scene is gone.

It is an oddity to find this standing here.— Koos van der Lende

Old Car

A 1937 Hudson Terraplane, so the story goes, on a farm at Klein-Aus Vista near Aus. It is one of the first panoramas Koos made after he bought the camera, and the first time he lit a subject himself. He used his car's headlights, switching between bright and dim, and could only guess how much light was falling on the wreck. The last pink of evening lies over the hills behind it.

I was very happy to see that the balance was good.— Koos van der Lende

Fence

On the road north from Aus towards Sossusvlei and Solitaire, the way hugs the Namib Naukluft Park for a couple of hundred kilometres. Blue sky, red dunes, grey mountains, white sand, and beside the road a farm fence running dead straight for kilometre after kilometre, held in place at the left by one old post.

The repetition of the fence, kilometre after kilometre.— Koos van der Lende

Forsaken No.2

Koos saw the wreck in a magazine just as Angola opened up after the war, and knew he had to go. The Vanessa Seafood had run aground on her maiden voyage out of Tombwa and washed up onto the beach. He drove alone up the coast for more than a week, crossing a fifty kilometre stretch that can only be passed at low tide, with no tide tables. Then she appeared out of the sea mist. A few years later the wreck was under the sand.

I saw it appear out of the mist.— Koos van der Lende

Vanessa Seafood

Koos spent five days with the Vanessa Seafood, in every kind of weather, walking around her and over her and trying every angle he could find. Here he lifted the boat clean away from the sea, so all that is left is the hull, the sand and a sky in motion.

That was the purpose of my whole trip.— Koos van der Lende

Forsaken No.3

On board the Vanessa Seafood. While Koos was there, the owner drove onto the beach to strip what was left, compressors, port windows, pipes, and drove straight into his picture. Every evening the darters came to roost on the ropes and cables, and their white guano, the green ochre rust and the cold blue sea behind made the colours of the whole scene.

It is so lovely just to keep walking and looking.— Koos van der Lende

Bird Island Lighthouse

When Koos was flown onto Bird Island by helicopter, it still belonged to the port authorities. He had three days alone to cover everything he could, the gannets, the buildings, the shore. This is an evening on the island, overcast and cold, with only the beam of the lighthouse.

A quiet image of Bird Island.— Koos van der Lende

Bird Island

Koos came here for a series on South Africa's national parks for the post office stamps. Bird Island, off the coast in Algoa Bay, is now part of the Addo Elephant National Park, but then it was closed. He was left on the island with 60,000 gannets and the penguins, which walked in and out of the old house where he slept, until he barricaded the door at night. Late light breaks over the lighthouse onto the house, with the storm still dark on the other side.

What a privilege, what a blessing.— Koos van der Lende

The Cross

A small cross on the shore at Gordon's Bay, set up in memory of a doctor who drowned here. Koos found it on an overcast afternoon on his way to the southern tip of Africa, and decided to wait. As the clouds lifted the sky turned bright over False Bay, and he lit the cross by hand while the evening faded.

It's really like doing a painting.— Koos van der Lende

Boat on Massingir

Just across the border from the Kruger Park, the Massingir Dam is home to more than a hundred crocodiles and to farmers who plough the clay lower and lower as the water drops. This old boat was already half full of water. The next day Koos watched two men take it out, one rowing, one bailing all the way.

A quiet, rustic image.— Koos van der Lende

Evolution No.6

Behind a private railway company in the centre of Pretoria lies a yard where old steam engines are left to rust. Koos asked permission to work there one early morning, and was given it. He gave the picture a warm sepia tone, for the nostalgia of the steam age, with the low light catching the back of the engine and the tufts of grass in front.

Quiet, but still strong.— Koos van der Lende