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.....

Panama impression

This summer we went to Panama. It is really an amazing country. But I believe this was the most difficult holiday for me to take pictures. You don't see many birds or other animal in the rainforest. And if you see them it is so difficult to get a clear shot. You have to use a very high iso and therefore, even do I have a nikon D700, you see a lot of noise and I hate that. If anyone has tips for a good program for noise please let me know. Uptill know I have never used it so I don't have one and I don't know which one to choose. However I have a short impression for you from, birds, orchids and insekt.

The first one is of a hummingbird in his tiny little nest. It has the size of an egg capsule. It was so impressive to see. It was beautiful made and covered with light green moss. The inside looks like it was made of soft hair. An real piece of art.

Panama during the rain is really a challenge. Very little light and if you want to shoot the hummingbirds it is terrible. But they are great to watch also without a camera :)

We were very lucky to see the quetzal. The most beautiful bird of Panama. It lives above 2100 meter so you have to be high up in the mountains. We saw them in Cerra Punta the highest village in Panama. And the big surprise was that the couple was still feeding the baby. Normally they do that in the beginning of the year around march so they were very late. The guide told us that the young bird probably was going to fly out the next week. And then they are gone till the next year. It was so dark and too far away that we only saw at home that he was feeding it with a fruit. (these are both crops)The quality of the pictures is terrible but I just wanted to share it because you don't see this very often. I had to use a very high iso. It was already dark in the forest but rain was coming. After taking the last shot we had to pack our bags and put on our raincoats. We arrived totally soaked down the hill but it was so worth it.

In Cerra Punt there is also an orchid farm. Finca Dracula. It is well know for it's over more then 2000 species. The problem is that the special ones are inside and it is very dark over there. So again a lot of noise in the shots.

The tiny yellow orchids you see below are smaller then 1 cm. 

Butterflies......I don't think there is a country were you can see more. But they never sit still. And if they do they close there beautifull coloured wings. The one below is the blue Morpho and can be 64-78 mm. You often see them in the butterfly farms in Holland. If you see them flying through the woods it looks like they are drunk. Therefore also very hard to catch in the flight.

The 2nd day I saw these great grasshoppers. We made a stopover because my friend wanted to take some pictures of the birds at the lake. When I was walking along the road my I saw these colourfull creatures. Amazing what a colours. There heads look like sculls.

I saw so many that I thought they were very common here but after this time I never saw them again.

Lucky we stopped.  

Even tiny spiders eat big grasshoppers. Not a great shot but I was a little surprised to see this so I wanted to share it.

This was a short impression. I hope you enjoyed it.