Wrong Choice

Here's one from a week ago, as the terrible weather kept me inside during the whole of last weekend. This one was taken one afternoon when the sky looked promising. I expected a nice sunset and found some time to go out.

The big mistake I made was to head for a location I did not know very well because I thought the meandering stream there, combined with the wide, unobstructed view, would make for a nice subject. I arrived at the spot long before sunset, so had all the time to look for a suitable composition and setup my camera. However, right before sunrise, I found myself still rushing around because there was not a single vantage point that provided me with an image that I was hapy with. In the end, I settled for this relatively standard composition of a silhouetted tree against the evening sky. The recently mowed reeds and the ditch are nice diagonal elements and the pinkish afterglow light is pleasing to the eye.

However, had I gone to one of my 'private' places, the ones I visit often, I would have walked straight to the best position to shoot from and could have waited for the right moment. The result would probably have been the best shot of that particular location in my archives.

So lesson learned: do research when the light is not right and head to familiar places when it is. Of course, one can always get lucky by being at the 'right place at the right time', but to be honest, such is the exception to the rule. Well, at least in my case. Predictions for next weekend are 'really cold winter weather'. Fingers crossed and ready to head to familiar places!

Sunset Tree; Canon 5D Mark II w. 17-40/4L; 2.5s af F16 and ISO100; ND Grad filter, remote release, bubble level and tripod

Wet Suit

Finally some luck with the timing. For the first time in ages, last Friday featured a wonderful sunrise. It was a short one, because the clouds came in right after the colors put on some decent hue and saturation. But alas, at least we got some color. After the recent rains, the water level has risen quite a bit. Even the small pools of water in between the high grass are deeper than you might think at first glance. I found out the hard (and wet) way when I suddenly stepped into a pothole, lost my balance and got wet up to my thighs. For a moment I was glad we were not experiencing a bitingly cold winter's morning.

The next morning saw me back at the same scene, but it was cloudy and grey. When the sun finally beat the clouds, the colors had long gone. Same with the Sunday, when I was smart enough to step outside into the garden and then back into bed.

The afternoons had some serious sunsets to showcase though, so maybe I should stick to those. As I am not blessed with a natural tendency for getting up early, it might not even be such a bad idea. As I am writing this, we have had a day and night with some serious frost and the next day and night the cold will stick around. Hopefully winter will persevere a bit longer, I would love to get back to those fens and photograph them with a beautiful thin layer of ice to reflect the sunrise or sunset colors.

By the way, photographing a scene like the one above needs ND Grad filters. As I am getting more experienced at landscape photography (I consider myself still a novice), I find I am grabbing the right filter on more and more occasions. One thing to look out for is not to filter too much when there's water reflecting the sky in the shot. It just does not look right when the reflection is brighter than the sky itself.

Heather Fen at Sunrise; Canon 5D Mark II w. 17-40/4L; 10s at F16 and ISO200; ND Grad filter, remote release, bubble level and tripod

Maya Prophecy

To the left is my first and only photograph taken in 2012 and it perfectly represents the nature of the current winter, if one could call it a winter at all. Dark, gloomy, rainy, windy, mild. In Dutch we would call this a 'kwakkelwinter', a sickly winter. All this darkness could well be a herald to the Maya prophecy that planet earth is bound to meet its maker in 2012. At least at home, things are heading south quickly. Software on the Mac suddenly stopped working, the kitchen lights failed on me and replacements that fit the holes in the cabinets are no longer sold. So even more darkness at the Heuts mansion. I think I'll just sit still and see what happens. Maybe the Mayas were wrong after all and just were not able to count any further than 2012.

Well, dear Mayas, I got news for you: 2013 is the next number and surely not the last. Hopefully one of them is a follower of this blog, recognizes their mistake and turns the lights on again. Oh, and when you're at it, please switch the frost and snow levers too. Thank you. Or muchas gracias for that matter.

Flooded Heather; Canon 5D Mark II w. 17-40/4L; 30s at F16 and ISO200; ND-Grad filter, tripod and remote release