Creatures out of space

Yess finally my new website in English is on line!!!

www.andreagulickx-photography.com

www.andreagulickx-photography.nl

Because of this I will not post the total blogs here anymore because I would love you guys to come to my new site including the blog. However I will always place the first photo here so you know there is a new blog. 

But maybe even better...... you can subscribe to a Newsletter in English now, so you will be kept updated when the new blogs will be there. If you would like that please follow me here.

2 weeks ago I got the possibility to photograph praying mantis. I always find them fascintaing when I see them on all the different photo forums. Unreal how those small creatures are put together. I have often seen them on pictures but never in real life. The enthusiasm of  Marianne Brouwer and Mariska Boertjens is contagious so I was quite curious. It was so great that I had the possibility to look in your ‘small world of creatures’ Marianne, what a wonderful creatures you have.

Because it was too cold outside we couldn’t take them outside. That is why we have different settings made in the house. A world on its own, and for me still an unknown world. The great thing is that I have learned a lot again. Thank you so much Marianne. I found a great day. And already looking through the camera I fell from one surprise to another.

The Blepharopsis Mendica of the flower praying mantis-family

This mantis was approximately 3 a 4 cm big.

If you would like to see and read more of me and my friends in Dutch please follow me here......

If you would like to see and read more of me and my friends in English please follow me here......

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

About poppies and Crickets

Rain... rain down on me. I love the song from Kane but the rain..... Hmm not that much. At the moment our garden is really a mess. The plants are too heavy of all the water they have to carry. Everything is more than 30 cm longer than it should be. And then the wind. It's not a very easy macro season unfortunately.

I think everybody has those weeks, months that you take pictures and no time to upload or make a new blog. For me it is almost a month ago, so it is really time for a new blog. In between the rainy days I went to nice places to see if there were poppies. I dreamed of a big field of poppies but however not this year. I am glad to see them more and more in holland along the roads. First there is the white and yellow and then you see red and purple. Beautiful. I have been shooting the poppies on different places. So I put every thing together.

 I also love my green little friend 'Jaapie cricket'. They are very fast and clever. It is fun and difficult to get them in a right spot to make a nice clear picture without all the grass in front of him.  

Red is not an easy colour to capture. As I see the pictures here after the upload there is not so much contrast as in the original. That's often a problem with red.When taking a picture I  underexpose it often to get more contrast in the red.

I hope you enjoyed the blog and that the weather will be more sunny. I hope it will be finally summer soon :)

Blossom moods

How much as I love to experiment there's nothing what gives me a bigger smile on my face then just my macro and me with nothing else. Of course a few photo's of the blossom here in the Betuwe can't miss. 

But the first one is from the botanical garden in Wageningen.

These white blossoms are from the old high tribe trees in de Betuwe in Zoelen.

The botanical gardens was one big explosion of colours. All different kind of threes were blooming. Amazing. These blossoms are from different kind of threes.

When I am photographing I am totally shutting myself of so I don't hear much what is happening around me. At a certain point I was 'awakening' by a loot of zoom sounds. When I looked up the tree was covered with bees. 

Not blooming yet but as you can see the colour it must be a great sight when it is blooming.

Snowdrops fading away in the dark.

Last week on Tuesday I wanted to go to the botanic gardens in Utrecht but it was a mess with parking the car. I decided to go to Amelisweerd, the small forest where I used to live very close by. I was so glad I went to this place. I simple forgot how beautiful it is. The ground was covered with snowdrops almost out of blooming but then you know...... spring is coming.
The sun was shining but a lot of clouds were already on the way. I didn't need the sun too much anyway because I wanted to make some different shots with the snowflakes.
I played with the whitebalance because I like the colours to be cooler with snowdrops. And for the darker feeling I underexposed.

It turned out to be a great day laying on the ground between all these lovely white snowdrops.

Thanks everyone for visiting my blog and I would like to thank everyone who left a comment on my previous blog. I really appreciate it a lot.

Dandelight

2 weeks ago zoom.nl made my picture 'Dark Serenity' the redactions choise. It is one of my Dandelight serie which I made a few weeks ago.

Dark Serenity

Dandelight I

Dandelight II

Dandelight III

Aqua Serenity

Drama Queen

Dandelight IV

Dandelight V