Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Dear Blog Friends & Fans,

Thanks for your friendship the past year. Your comments and feedback, I really appreciate it. Specially because I don't have a lot of time to visit all the blogs by every new post, however when I take a look I always watch the older stories with photo's too but unfortunately i don't have the time to respond on every one of them even do I would love to.

I loved seeing your creative and inspiring foto's and reading your stories. I hope 2013 will be an even more inspiring year with, creativity, warmth and joy in what ever you do. Happy holidays. All the best. Andrea

Treasures of the forest floor

I am as always behind with my blogs :) Winter is already here and i haven't post any pictures of the autumn. I haven't been much on the road for that. But I have visited the speulderforest which was already a long time on my lis. I went toe the leersumse veld also one of my favorite places. But not many fungus. In the speulder forest the other hand there were lots of them. The other thing was that I was less interested in them because it was booming on internet with all these pictures of them so I was trying to find other subjects and other challanges.

I seams already such a long time ago. The pictures have been taken in oktober and the beginning of november. I have been experimenting a bit with double exposure and bigger apurture just to try something different.

double exposure of the forest floor

F18

F8 and double exposure

F20  

I loved the atmosphere like the trees were under water but the highlights are too much.

climbing the ivory tower

fungi frog (fun)

playing with lights,leaves and much under exposure

 

I love the darkness on the forest floor

Also the fragile ferns are very interesting subjects in autumn.

double exposure with zoom

frozen leaves on the forest floor

And finaly some fungus.

 

My favorite one.

I hope you enjoyed it. And  I hope snow will be coming soon again to make some winter pictures.

Sparkling awakenings

As promised the new blog is about the beautiful morning on the heathland of Ede. It was truly a magical morning at the beginning of October. It already seams so far away if you see al the yellow and orange colors now. The heathland was totally covered in frost and the fog gave it just the magical touch I love. It was almost quiet except for the cars you hear from the road not far away. But after a few  minutes you totally block out all the sounds and you feel totally alone in this serene world. A few times I cough myself holding my breath. Nature can be so overwhelming. The morning started in icy pastels and they turned into warm colours.

The sun rose rapidly to the sky and turned everything into magic.

I used different kind of lee filters for the landscape pictures. I still find a way how to remember which one I have used for which picture because I swich a lot between 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9. sometimes I use them together. I am just experimenting a lot with them.

I took this picture of the spider web with white balance on cold color but afterwards I didn't like it and brought back the warmth in it and I was very surprise how the golden color appeared. 

When frost turns into water drops and the sun is shining behind it you don't know what you see. I think I fell in love again that morning, sorry my love ;-), but this time with nature, my hearth was bouncing for the beauty around me. Specially all the spiderwebs which were lighting up in the field. I couldn't get my eyes of them.

I underexposed a lot of pictures to get more contrast.

When the sun is shining behind all the water drops you get these beautiful bokeh cirkles.

And more spiderwebs. Sometimes I love to play with the colour. So below I changed the tint into a bit more purple.

Heatland in the end of summer

It is already a few weeks ago from the last post. Time for a new blog. Time flies when your busy or having fun. A Few great things happen. One of the great things was that 3 of my pictures were placed in the new Roots Agenda. And I am very proud of it. 

An other thing is my exposition of 35 photo's hanging in the GGD in Tiel. I am very happy with that.

And a picture of mine was placed as almost winner of the monthly competition black and white of roots.

And at the moment I am trying out my new tripod and lee filters which I have so long but still didn't use much. One of the things of my wish list is learning more about landscape. A different challenge. 

As always I just go out in the field and just try the stuff. And boy this is a different kind of stuff. But I love this new challenge. The first time I went to the heathland of Delhuijzen near Arnhem the end of august. Pffff it wasn't easy when the alarm was ringing in the morning but sitting in the car I was very exited. It was still dark when I got there. Fog was promised and a clear sky. And it was amazing. Parts in the heathland had long grasses which were glowing as big chains. It was shining everywhere and also the spiderwebs were lighting up everywhere. I went back the weekend after and again a great morning. These foto's are from both times.

Spiderwebs are glowing in the field

I have used different kind of lee filters. Sometimes even 3 filter together because of the very strong sun.

0.3 0.6 and 0.9 all nd gradient filters. Just trying what works best. I lot to learn still but fun to do.

And so much to learn and to pay attention to. You have to be carefull not to get drops on your filters of the long grass. I didn't noticed it right away but when I was at home and saw everything in the computer in this case I didn't mind. Well on the tree I like it but at the heathland I would have prefer it without. But that was not he case:)

Dew drops with backlight are magical.

Lots of spiders everywhere you look.

And when the great light was gone I didn't want to go home yet. So time to experiment with hard light. The fotos below were taken with a long shutterspeed and movement. You can see the heathland through the trees.

And last but not least...... some new stuff on my blog. Quotes. I love quotes. I you want to know more look on my new quote page.

Past Month I have been to the Ginkelse heide in Ede. I hope to post pictures of this in my next blog. A totally different tempeture.....