Photographing the Spectacular Beauty of the Drakensberg: You Won't Believe Your Eyes! 

The Drakensberg is THE most beautiful place in the world. Intimate, vast and rich in diverse flora and fauna. The caves, pools and waterfalls are epic too. Love to go back.

Some of those photos, most actually, are fantastic.

Thanks to Susan Bridenstine for telling me about you. This is my home turf. I am sitting here, an expat living in Ecuador, with tears running down my face ….. so incredibly homesick! Thank you! ❤❤❤❤

14:56 oh wow. The last shot and then the video of that bird flying on the mountain were sublime.

I grew up close to the Drakensberg. A trip to the mountains was always an exciting treat.

Wellcome in South Africa. My place.

We had our honeymoon at Cathedral Peak. Spectacular!

Great to see the Landscape photographers visiting South Africa, Tugela Falls one of our faves, hope you had chance to get there while in the Berg.

Great images as always! Love the Drakensberg, time to go visit again, thanks for sharing Adam!

From Blade Runner....“I've seen things you people wouldn't believe." Thanks for taking us along on this trip Adam, It's amazing!!

Curses, another location has now been added to my ever growing bucket-list of must photograph locations! LOL, thanks for sharing your trip Adam. You came away with amazing work as usual. Cheers!

Talk abut epic scenery! Great stuff Adam!

SPECTACULAR ... Thanks !!!

Stunning work. Very very nice.

Wow!😮 What a stunning scenery ...and weather! Gorgeous incredible Photos Adam! ❤

Made me homesick, great video

Awesome place really love the shots..

5 minutes in and I'm impressed with who is filming you. They are doing a FANTASTIC job. The camera movements make them look like a pro! (Edit: you mentioned that it is Alex's footage. Nicely done Alex.)

Fantastic work. Loved this video.

Wow!

amazing scenes…

This is a fantastic video!

Those were some next level images you got there Adam, I'm looking forward to seeing more.

What an amazing place! Beautiful photographs Adam! Thanks.

Wow, what amazing landscapes.

As always good work, thanks for taking us along with you. These are areas most of us will never see ,that's why we follow you so closely. Thanks Adam for the opportunity to see so much of Africa, it is stunning. As always your photography does an outstanding job of showing us what we truly are missing. Great shots Adam, that last one going into the ravine was fantastic. I really can't overstate the thanks for taking us along!

Having been there a couple of times with Alex, I’ve been anxiously awaiting your take. You are right about the scale- tremendously vast. Splendid images!

Wow, such magnificence, and also the images you took.

Very good video. Your editing lets the footage speak for itself. I think showing the journey towards the place you are photographing adds a lot of value and perspective, and the photos were epic indeed :)

Beautiful Scenery, tough hike though, but I bet it was worth it

What an incredible landscape!!! Loved the pace, monologue, and of course, the imagery of this magnificent place. Thanks for sharing Adam.

Absolutely marvelous!!

Absolutely stunning images, thanks Adam

Beautiful! I just started Alex's 5-part series. Outstanding scenery. Loved the story about the morning the constitutional, Gavin would be proud. Safe travels!

Wow! Great introduction: at the back of the truck and then the first day in the foothills. Second day steep up. The Drakensberg is majestic and you managed to portray the trekking experience in the video. You cannot just drive to any of those locations. Brought back memories... Thank you so much!

One with „Whow factor“ - it’s always great watching your videos

Those are beautiful Mountains as I see! great images Adam, thanks for sharing! ciao!

Stunning Photos Adam . Would I go there yes please . Alas no way could I make the trek up there . Thank you so much for sharing your adventures with us less able . Kind regards Martin UK .

Wonderful scenery Adam. I think you managed to express the scale of the Drakensberg in spite of yourself, although I'm sure it was even more magnificent in person. Well done!

What an incredible location, and excellent images.

Very very beautifully shots, Adam! Beautiful landscape, the greens and the shapes of the stacks reminded me of Skye very much, but the dimensions are even more impressive. Thank you ever so much for sharing!

What an adventure. Great video Adam

Wonderful photos!

Some great images buddy, totally agree that last shot was a cracking comp

Adam, you captured some awesome compositions!

Truly amazing place and superb sunset shots. Good of you to spend time making epic video’s.

Amazing! I want to see more from this place.

Wonderful video and indeed that dark image turned out absolutely fantastic!

Some pretty amazing shots from a place I've never even heard of!

awesome shots!!!

Absolutely epic views Adam . What an incredible experience and a privilege to explore such places on this wonderful planet we all share ! Thank you so much for sharing your adventures ! Your captures are excellent ! Love your work ! Stay well !

Wow Adam, Amazing location and photos !! I have played a bit with the LR denoise ... seem very good. That shot @12:30 holy cow!! Gavin would have a field day with that opening :)

Hey Adam... if you ever come back to South Africa, check out some of the other almost-impossible-to-photograph mountain ranges we have.... Cederberg... Swartberge... this country has so many spectacular places to photograph. Truly wild places where possibly no man has ever set foot. Love this video.

Great video again!!!👍😀🌏🌷🌟🌴!!!!

Thanks for bringing us along Adam. The image at 12:13 made me think of what the dawning of the first day on earth might have looked like.

Welcome to stunning South Africa. Greetings from Cape Town.

Emily's reaction "Well you don't talk as much about poo in your vlogs" :P Great stuff Adam and thanks for the promotion!

Drakensberg means Dragonsmountain in Dutch. not sure if you mentioned that. nice video Adam.

thank you for the video

Amazing video 🙏🙏

Sensational location, I'd be taking images left and right there...

Those Drakensburg thunderstorms are terrifying! In summer you often get them in the afternoons.

Always love a good poo story!

looks like a very good location - a real aventure :) Those cliffs 300m high -- my advice for what its worth, put your shutter on time lapse, and run around and stand on the top of one the points --- obviously wearing a Red Coat ;) You can have that advice for free.

Some stunning sunrise shots Adam and I agree with you re the new Adobe noise reduction software!

Top tip, portray the scale of mountains from sea level. Bonus of easier walking and you can stay in a hotel each night too. No digging your loo either! 😊 Lovely vlog as usual Adam, and thank you for taking me to those locations I would not otherwise visit. 👍

Lo amo

Wow, what an expedition! Certainly not one for the 'hobbyist' me thinks. I imagine it was very difficult to portray the scale of the place but you are the man! Your skills come through again, thank you Adam.

I think a great idea for a video would be you going over a checklist of the items/gear that you bring on an adventure like this. I'd be curious to know.

Awesome video Adam, this is propably just me but I don't think showing scale is all that important as long as you have light and a good composition. True scale only shows if you're there in person. Can't wait for the next videos!

What a remarkable place to visit. I bet the hike was real fun even with the torrential rains. I have checked the LCR new AI denoise comparisons on YT and it realy improved a lot. However I still see DXO Pure raw a better option for microcontrast retention(even with a slight darkening it causes it is easyily correctible). The best option in my observation is using Lightroom first as it looks to me it creates a raw looking image with a generic pixel noise, then use DXO to remove that generic noise and even bring out more detail! Best of both worlds.

Stunning. It's like The Quiraing on steroids!

Makes me miss the Drakensberg. Just thought I'd mention, you weren't showing us RAW files because you can't see a RAW file - those were jpeg renderings of the camera's settings at the time.

Adam! 12:40 is an absolutely stunning photo! Very envious of your trip. It must have cost a pretty penny.

Dear Adam, many thanks for sharing your amazing compositions with your deep knowledge of Light 🙏🏼 I like the key question (photographic & philosophic) between lack of Human perspective in the cliffs’ photo & maybe too much AI in the last ones…

Wow some of those shots could have been taken on planet Jupiter for all we know, stunning indeed!

Amazing... 13:16 that should have been a photo as well, right?

We were there last fall and the smoke in the air was chokingly thick. We were told incessantly the farmers burning their fields, truly horrible.

Those vultures circling during the climb looked very hopeful.

Love the images, Adam. Prefer the dark shadows to the lightened shadows using Lightroom’s Ai. Thanks for all!

Wanderful images Adam I really understand what you mean about the size difference between pictures and the mountains but would respectfully say resist the need for putting people in “for scale “ mountains are big pictures are small it is what it is if you put a person in it changes the dynamic of the image. Some of these images are my favourite of your recent work!

quickest poo :D Good one, Adam. You and Alex seem to have had great fun. Looking forward to more from this trip. One thing I was keen on was to see if you carried GFX. I've been also leaning to 35-70 and like old days of medium format limiting myself to wide-normal-tele prime kind of combination. Although zooms are no terribly heavy they are very bulky. How did you vlog this? Last two images are fantastic.

I have had several trips in the Drakensberg, focusing on the hiking and climbing, but agree with your assessment: without a person in the scene, the scale is not remotely dramatic. The effort required to get a person into the right position in a composition is unrealistic in most cases sadly. So the Berg (colloquial South Africanism) is reserved for experiencing not capturing. Even Alex’s more frequent trips haven’t really achieved a master shot.

I dont understand why folks dont carry Poncho's in there bag for torrential down pours, far better than any backpack covers. @13.16 Wonderful capture Adam, you being in frame reflects massive scale of Mtns.

No, thank you! Drakensberg was totally new to me (how in the heck did that happen?!). We have some "similar" country near Phoenix, but on a micro scale, not nearly as epic as those cliffs. The Napali Coast comes closest (of the geography I'm aware of). I can see why you had sensory over load.

Fantastic video. The large bird flying in the end frame - is it a vulture? Have you snapped a picture of the bird with the magnificent background?

So nice😍😍 Can you recommend a tour operator??

The price you pay (I do mean the foul weather)for an incredible adventure..... I can feel the fatigue in my legs and the searching for oxygen in my lungs as you hike up..... was this a photo tour, or simply a mountaineering expedition with a camera???? 🙂

Adam, love your videos and pictures. I’m not certain about your ideas on scale. Usually the objects in the foreground set the scale. I guess in some instances you have to include a person for scale. I just hate putting people in landscape pictures. I don’t like people even though I am one.

What a difference from Heaton's channel. That dude travels to the most uninspiring places and wonders why his photography is lacking lately. He needs to watch more of your channel and get inspired again