Sand and Fog: Adventures in Southern Africa

Gr. 5-9. In this stunning photo-essay about Namibia in southwest Africa, the color pictures are mysterious and precise, and so are Brandenburg's words about the place and how he took the pictures. He tells the story behind the haunting cover photo of a horned oryx against the desert shadow: how he saw himself on a kind of "quest" for the "unicornlike" creature through a moonscape setting of shifting sand. He talks about the specifics of lighting: how the use of shadow helps express a mood of melancholy; how he waited for the exact moment to catch four ostriches glowing "in a sliver of light for a few moments at sunrise." The captions make you study the pictures and wonder about the precariousness of each creature as elephants gather at a shrinking water hole and a group of striped zebra is distanced through a filter of dust. Brandenburg (who last year published To the Top of the World: Adventures with Arctic Wolves) took these pictures while on an assignment in southern Africa for National Geographic. The few pictures of people are far less interesting than those of the landscape and animals, though there's one great shot of a Herero woman in a swirling print dress, striding down the street with a Singer sewing machine on her head. However, Brandenburg is frank about the fact that he tends to turn every assignment into a natural history story. The desert is his subject here, "the cliffs of cascading sand," where a group of flamingos makes a crowd or he finds a fog-draped wreck washed up on the Skeleton Coast. It's in the empty places that he finds the whole cycle of death and renewal. Hazel Rochman

Once again, a noted photographer (To the Top of the World: Adventures with Arctic Wolves, 1993) visits an apparently desolate region and finds it full of life and beauty. In Namibia (``place of no people''), Brandenburg treks empty dunes to find tracks of the elusive oryx and one perfect picture of a lone animal on a wind-sculpted dune (reproduced in full splendor on the jacket; unfortunately guttered within). Visiting Himba and Herero tribes on the Skeleton Coast, he discovers the many tricks animals use to find and hoard precious water; and he locates flamingoes, jackals, lions, and giraffes where there are no trees. In the south he sorts priceless diamonds and sees seals and penguins; and in the Etosha National Park in north-central Namibia he has just a few seconds at sunrise for ``...only 10 to 15 frames'' of ostriches, their backlit necks dramatically echoing the luminous sky. The subtexts here may be as important as the color photos: the enormous dedication required, hardships endured, and thousands of shots taken for a few matchless photos; and the ability to bring a sense of wonder, joy, and discovery to a place where others might find only discomfort. (Nonfiction. 10+) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.