VESTIGE

The trees at Dead Vlei died about nine hundred years ago. The dry air never let them rot, so they just stayed. They embrace the same pose, as their branches reach the sky above for water that stopped coming centuries back. But they are not the oldest thing in the frame. The dunes around them are some of the tallest on earth, built one grain at a time over tens of thousands of years. Next to that, the trees are almost new. One could say barely dead actually, when you think about it in dune years. In Dead Vlei, two clocks run at wildly different speeds. Fog comes through and burns off in an hour. Wind moves a ridge of sand overnight. The light constantly shifts throughout the day. Yet, the trees don't register any of it. They are the vestige, what is left while the environment keeps moving around them as they stand frozen in time. Heartfelt thanks to Rambo Uaraavi for guiding me through Namibia, sharing his knowledge and passion, and making this work possible.