Painted Reflections on High Water

The past few weeks the weather haven't been that great. It kept on raining every day and lots of wind. So no macrophotography. 

We are living very close to the Waal river and it was rising every day for the past few weeks. We couldn't drive or walk on the low road because it was completely gone. The grass-lands were gone, only the tree tops were above the water.

Since the beginning of last week the water was finally going back again. 

Last monday I had to go on an assignment for photography and the weather was great. I was very lucky. So on my way  back to home I decided to drive along the Waal to see how it was now. The sun was already very low and the water was very smood. Almost no wind, it looked magical. It started with pastel colors because the sun was coming from the side. 

The smooth water gave great reflections like it was a painting and I love that. I waited for the birds to fly over the water surface to make this shot. It was so peacefull.

As I drove further the sun was lowering more and I took some shots right into the sun. I love the warm colours and silhouetshapes. However don't do this on a summerday with hard sunlight. It can damage your camera and your eyes. Airplane stripes were marking the sky.

Further up I saw beautiful pollard willows. Ducks were swimming in front of them. I waited till the sun was shining behind one of the pollard willow to take the shot. Unfortunately I didn't have my filters with me, that would have dimmed the hard contrast of the sun more. 

All the water you see below on the picture with the bridge on the horizon is normally grassland.

At this moment it's already grassland again. It lowered very fast past week. 

For the picture below I played with the colours in Lightroom to get a more painted feeling

and old look.  

It was a great way to end the day.