Arrival in Windhoek and departure for Etosha National Park (about 4 h 40 min). The name means “great white place” in Oshindonga, after the salt pan of nearly 5,000 km² that gives the park its name: a scar of calcite so vast it can be seen from space.

We arrive in time for a first sunset session on the outskirts of the park and, if the group is up for it, a first taste of the Namibian sky: still a third of the moon showing, just enough to calibrate gear and framings before the big nights of the trip.

Two full days of photographic safari. Late June is the height of the dry season: riverbeds run empty, water shrinks to the waterholes and the wildlife comes to them in a steady stream. That is the logic that makes Etosha one of Africa’s most photogenic safaris in winter: instead of chasing the animals, we choose the waterhole, the light and the background, and let the scene come to us.

Etosha holds one of the largest black rhino populations on the planet, alongside elephants that emerge from the white calcite dust —the so-called “ghost elephants”—, lions, giraffes, oryx and zebras. We will work the first and last hours of the day, when raking light and suspended dust turn every waterhole into a natural stage, with the option of night shots at floodlit waterholes where the lodging allows it.

A long telephoto and patience: here, waiting is the method.

Departure for Spitzkoppe (about 4 h 30 min), the “Matterhorn of Namibia”: a granite inselberg more than 120 million years old rising 700 metres above the plain to 1,728 m. Its bare rock, polished by erosion, glows deep orange in the last light of day.

Sunset session among the domes and the first great night shoot of the trip: with the moon at 3 %, Spitzkoppe’s granite arch —one of the most coveted natural frames in night photography anywhere— awaits us beneath the galactic core.

Sunrise among the granite, with the occasional fog the Atlantic pushes inland. During the day we explore the massif’s scenic viewpoints and visit the rock paintings of the so-called Bushman’s Paradise: hunting scenes and ritual figures painted by the San people between 2,000 and 4,000 years ago, when these rocks were already a refuge with water in the middle of the plain.

Sunset and a second full night of astrophotography, now with virtually no moon. It is the ideal night for Milky Way panoramas, star trails over the domes and low-light-lit foregrounds.

We drop down to the coast (about 2 h) and the landscape changes planet: the cold Benguela Current keeps this stretch of the Atlantic wrapped in fog and teeming with life. The Walvis Bay lagoon, a wetland protected under the Ramsar Convention, is one of the most important bird sanctuaries in southern Africa: thousands of flamingos —greater and lesser—, pelicans and waders just metres from the shore.

Afternoon devoted to coastal wildlife photography, including the Cape fur seal colony at Pelican Point. The soft light of the coastal fog, so different from the harshness of the interior, lends itself to pastel tones and minimalist compositions.

Possible sunrise session at the Walvis Bay salt works, one of Africa’s largest solar salt operations: its evaporation ponds shift from pink to magenta depending on the concentration of microorganisms — an impossible gradient that calls for a drone and abstraction.

Mid-morning, Swakopmund: founded in 1892 as the port of the German colony, it preserves a historic centre of Central European architecture stranded between desert and ocean, with buildings such as the Woermannhaus and the old lighthouse.

In the afternoon, a 4×4 excursion to Sandwich Harbour, one of the very few places on Earth where a sea of dunes falls straight into the ocean. We drive along the beach with the tide in our favour to photograph sunset where the Namib sinks into the Atlantic. Tonight is, precisely, the night of the new moon.

An inland leg towards Sossusvlei (about 5 h), crossing the Kuiseb passes and the Tropic of Capricorn. Obligatory stop at Solitaire, the only fuel stop on the route: a handful of houses, American cars devoured by rust, and the apple pie that baker Moose McGregor turned into a desert legend — the recipe lives on and is still said to be the best in Namibia.

Arrival in the Sesriem area, sunset session among the first dunes and a night shoot in the heart of the Namib. The region around Sossusvlei boasts some of the darkest, cleanest skies on the planet; with a brand-new moon at barely 4 %, the best run of night sessions of the trip begins.

An early start to enter Deadvlei with the first light — Namibia’s most recognisable image: an ancient white clay pan studded with camel thorn trees that died more than six centuries ago, when the dunes cut off the Tsauchab River. The air is so dry the trees never even decomposed: they still stand, blackened by the sun, against an orange wall of dunes over 300 metres tall. The half hour after sunrise, as the shadow line slides down the dune, is the moment we come for.

Optional climb up one of the great dunes —Big Daddy stands around 325 metres— to photograph the sand sea from above. The deep red of these dunes is iron oxide: the older the sand, the deeper the colour, and the Namib has been a desert for at least 55 million years — the oldest in the world.

Sunset at Sesriem Canyon, a 30-metre gorge carved by the Tsauchab through conglomerate rock; its Afrikaans name —“six straps”— recalls the leather thongs settlers tied together to haul water from the bottom. Last night shoot of the trip under the Namib sky.

Return to Windhoek (about 5 h 20 min) across the mountains of the central escarpment, with photo stops depending on flight times. Arrival at the airport and end of services.

Ten days, three deserts, and a hard drive full of night.