Autumn Crocus

An abnormal silence in the blogosphere from my side, due to a short vacation break with the family in a pieceful cottage with no internet connection. Here's a catch-up (and backdated) post. Just before setting off for the holiday, I went to a nature reserve close to home which is wellknown for its large numbers of Meadow Saffron (Colchicum autumnale, Herfsttijloos), also known as the autumn crocus for obvious reasons. I had planned to go there and photograph the delicate flowers for several years, but somehow I failed to do so time after time. The flowers are only in bloom for a few weeks in september, so timing is important.

Even this year, I was relatively late in the season, but was fortunate to find many flowers still in bloom. I had to search for a few goodlooking ones though, because a fierce nocturnal and rather windy shower had damaged the majority of the flowers. I got down flat on the ground and used the pinkish purple blob of out-of-focus foreground flowers as a natural frame for the main subject. The 4-stop (!) IS of the new 70-200 allowed me to shoot handheld, even in rather dim light conditions.

Meadow Saffron; Canon 1D Mark III w. 70-200/2.8 II; 1/80s at F2.8 and ISO200, handheld.

Hit the Road

No time for photography last weekend, at least not actively. From September 19 - 26, Brabants Landschap organizes the ' Week van het Landschap'. This year based in the beautiful Herbertusbossen in Heeze, all kinds of activities take place to connect people with nature (conservation). Besides doing walks and bicycle routes, people can watch a forest harvester at work, kids can make nest boxes for tits and wrens, watch nature documentaries, listen to storytellers, gather their own meal in the forest and cook it on a bushfire and lots more.


There's also a photo exhibition that features 27 of my photos, all taken in the direct surroundings of the location. The idea is to show visitors that one does not have to travel a long way to see beautiful landscapes and creatures. Reactions have been very positive so far and I enjoy the chat with the many people that share my passion for nature and photography. I'll be there again next saturday to explain about the photos and how they were made.

Brabants Landschap also chose to use my photo of a jumping roe deer for all their promotion materials. It is featured on their website, in local newspapers, magazines and large posters that can be found about everywhere along main roads in our region. My participation does not earn me a single dime, but it is great to contribute to activities like this and watch kids enjoy themselves in nature. After all, they'll have to take over from us one day when it comes to conserving nature. 

More information abut the program can be found on the website of Brabants Landschap.

Further Up On The Road

After a few more days of rain, the rising water level at the inland lake had flooded the last remaining islands. So chances for waders were slim, if not to say non-existing. Because the weather forecast looked promising, I decided to leave the long lens at home and try my hand at landscapes. After all, the heather is still reasonably good looking (though rapidly fading) and it would be a shame not to photograph the sea of purple that is so typical for the region I live in. I went to a small patch of heather close to the inland lake. It's not the most beautiful or vast expanse of heather in the area, but is is one of the few patches with undulating terrain.

Most of the area I live in is completely flat, which (at least to me) makes it very hard to create interesting landscape photographs with enough depth in them. This patch of heather is relatively rough, enabling me to create a composition with leading lines and some depth. I went to the spot twice over the weekend. As usual, the weather forecast was wrong. On Friday, no fog or sunrise or interesting skies, just a plain grey mass. On Saturday, again no fog, but at least a sunrise and some color in the sky. And of course: when driving to the office on Monday, it was a beautiful morning with a dense groundfog and a perfect sunrise. Ain't it nice...

Heather Landscape; Canon 1D Mark III w. 17-40/4 L; 1.6s at F16 and ISO 100; tripod and ND Grad filters.

A Mere Inch

A mere inch. That's how little the heavy rains of last week have made the water level of the inland lake rise. The direct consequence of the higher water is the disappearance of the mudflats and grassy islands in the lake. Which in turn are (better: used to be) the foraging grounds for waders and Lapwings.

Weather was great for photography with a very dense fog. Clouds obscured the sun, so the fog remained for the full morning. Nice weather, but no birds. Who said a photographers life is easy?


I spent about an hour lying at the lakeshore, with only a few mallards and greylag geese somewhere in the white distance. At least, I guess they were mallards and geese, judging from the sounds I heard, coming from a distant invisibility.

Suddenly, out of this great white nothing, came a Great Blue Heron flying in. It landed right in front of me (still at 46 meters, according to the EXIF). I rattled off at a slow shutterspeed (as I had planned to do pan blurs this morning) and got a few nice ones. The Heron peered into the fog, roughly to where the clicking sounds came from, but clearly could not see me through the dense fog. Good to know I am not the only one with bad vision on foggy and gloomy early mornings. After a few seconds, the Heron decided not to take any chances and disappeared as quickly as it had landed. Again I had an eerily empty lake in front of me, but with the shots bagged, I packed up and went for some macro photography a few miles further.

Great Blue Heron; Canon 1D mark III w. 500/4 IS and 1.4x; 1/50s at F5,6 and ISO200; tripod and camo cloth.