Solitary Survivor
The welwitschia, alone in the Namib
Koos van der Lende
If you get something, whether it's a rock or a plant or a very special tree, it becomes the main object of the photograph.
— Koos van der Lende, on the welwitschiaThe welwitschia is a living fossil. It grows only two leaves in its whole life, which split and fray over the centuries, and some plants are more than a thousand years old. It survives on the west coast of Namibia by catching the fog that drifts in from the Atlantic.
For Koos van der Lende it is the perfect solitary subject. On plains where there is nothing for kilometres, a single plant becomes the whole picture, and the harsh land around it tells the story of its survival. He returned to it over many years, near the Brandberg, in the Namib Naukluft Park and close to Swakopmund, from his very first panoramic years to one of the most celebrated pictures he has made.
Often he works against the light, with the sun low behind the plant and reflector boards bringing that light back into the leaves, for the glowing, intimate mood that runs through the series.
- Works5 panoramas
- PlaceNamibia
- Made onSlide film, 6 × 17 cm
- Edition25 of each, signed and numbered
- Sizes80 to 140 cm wide
- PricesFrom $980
The Works
Koos van der Lende
For close to two decades Koos van der Lende has travelled Southern Africa with a panoramic film camera, planning each picture days ahead, where the sun will fall, at what time, at what angle. He still works on traditional slide film, which is processed and scanned to make prints of rare quality.
His archive runs from the Namib to the Indian Ocean. Solitary Survivor is drawn from it for this site, alongside the Classic Collection, Sacred Forests, Evidence of Mankind, the Water Pear Tree Collection, the Baobab Collection and the Latest Release.
Moments of Grace, eighteen years of his panoramas from Angola to the Seychelles, a linen cloth covered, hand assembled book in a handmade leather pouch, opening to a full metre wide.