Ghost towns can be very interesting to photograph and to explore. Kolmanskop is a ghost town near Luderitz in Namibia. When you arrive it does not look interesting at all. The magic is certainly not outside. However, once inside these buildings things come to life. The walls are colorful, there is sand everywhere, and the light can just make the image. This is a place where you can shoot all day, the quality of the light does not matter since you shoot inside. Here is an example:

Just look at the light coming into the room on the other side of the doorway. This place is ful of great textures everywhere. Many walls have multiple layers of paint on or wall paper.

          As usual, let's talk composition. The bright light in the other room through the doorway is visually very strong, it pulls the viewer's eyes into the scene. However, we want to balance that with something on the right. The door and window frame in the sand does the trick. Notice that the light section is mostly higher up in the image while the door and window frame is in the lower section of the image. This composition creates balance and flow without being in competition with each other.

          I have not included direct sunlight in this image as that makes things difficult to control. We will look at other images in the coming weeks that contain very strong direct sunlight, but more about that later. Make sure to use a smallish aperture as everything needs to be sharp. Always be careful when exploring sites like this, there may be splinters, broken glass, and other objects waiting to injure you. Wear good shoes as you do not know what is lurking under the sand. Clean your equipment every day out here since deserts and wind are friends and where there are sand and wind there is a lot of dust. Dust is no friend of your equipment.