On February 11th I went to the IJsselmeer in The Netherlands for a photo shoot with fellow photographers Ron ter Burg, Herman Schutte and Ron Buist. Goal was to photograph the sunset over the IJsselmeer. But not just a sunset and not just the IJsselmeer. The two weeks before this shoot, we actually had a real winter. Sometimes with temperatures as low as -15 (or even colder) over night. The freezing conditions created a wonderful arctic landscape. In The Netherlands!

It was a great afternoon. Being able to witness the great ice sculptures nature had created alone was brilliant already. Light and weather conditions were fantastic. This was actually one of those days that it all comes together. While working in these great conditions I actually had that one moment we’re always looking for: you simply know that great image is stored on your card! It’s the photo above.

One of the fun things having photography shoots together with some other photographers is that we sometimes make a photo of each other as well. Ron Buist actually photographed me while I made that single photo I’m so delighted about. So yes, there’s actually a making of …

Photo by Ron Buist

Shelf ice is a magnificent subject to photograph, especially in combination with beautiful light. I was lucky enough to have such conditions! I’ve put no less than 12 images from this shoot in the gallery. Explore them here!

7 more photos in the gallery.

Sunrise at the Waddensea near Emmapolder, The Netherlands

Weather forecast was actually very good for this morning, so I decided to get out of bed early to capture today’s sunrise.
I had a hard time deciding last night, but eventually I chose the Dwingelderveld National Park as my location.

When I left home, the weather was misty and grey. Not really what I expected. Think positive, just go and hope for better weather 60km south!
Unfortunately, conditions remained grey. All clouds and mist, no sun. Still managed to get some nice shots I think, reflecting the cold winter morning:

45 minutes after sunrise … still no sun. I decided to go back to the car and drive to another part of the national park, basically to scout locations for future sessions. While arriving there, I saw the sun shine through the clouds just a little bit, but already giving the heath fields a nice golden glow.

I parked the car, got my stuff out and only needed to walk for a few metres. Light was getting nicer and nicer, finally resulting in the below photo. 5 minutes later light became too bright and the moment was gone…

All in all and exciting morning and again worthwhile to get up so early!

This morning I had my first landscape photography session in The Netherlands in 2012. I chose the Lauwersmeer in the most northern part of our province as the location.
Fellow photographer Ton Dijfhamer joined as well and we had a really great morning.

We arrived at the location around 7:45, about an hour before sunrise. Colours were showing up already on the horizon, so we started ‘shooting’ immediately.
The top left photo shows the early morning colours about half an hour before sunrise. Beautiful colours already!

With rapidly changing colours, it was great fun and we took one shot after another. After a while, I took a cup of coffee, sent some tweets, and enjoyed the moment knowing I took some shots to be very happy with and assuming it would be over now.
Surprisingly conditions stayed interesting and I took some more pictures. We kept on going until an hour after sunrise!

Had I already mentioned this was a really great photography morning? 😉

More photos from this session are available in the landscapes gallery.