Last Sunday, after having the flu for over a week, I was really anxious to go out exploring again. At such a time I can get a bit nervous deciding where to go, as I was in need of a good photo-session. I had two options in mind, the beach, or the woodland in Breda (Mastbos). I decided on the woodland, as it was past sunrise and I thought the beach would need the golden hour.

Besides, I love woodland, when in doubt go to a forest! Maybe it’s because I grew up in the neighbourhood of a lot of woodland, maybe it’s something else, who knows? What I am looking for in the woodland is magical light and a fairy tale like atmosphere. I don’t ask for much! 🙂 The last time I visited the woodland in the Utrechtse Heuvelrug there was no sun to be found, so I hoped this day would be better. And frankly there was sun in my hometown, which gave me hope. However when I arrived in Breda it was all clouded, so I needed to find interesting objects, as the light wasn’t. But I found some trees that delivered, I discovered some bark with unexpected colors. I made a detailed photo as well, because I could hardly believe the amount of color I found, truly fascinating!

On the other hand there were sections of the woodland which surprised me by the lack of color. There were large sections with just white birch trees. And without the leaves, this created a bit of surreal atmosphere.

I wasn’t the only one in the woodlands, as one would expect on a Sunday morning. I crossed paths with a group of bikers, and panning is a technique I have been wanting to study. I tried quickly to track a few of the bikers, the shot below is my best one. Not very good, the sharp part is not the most interesting part of the bike or biker. Although we now know that the biker is from Baarle-Nassau (or at least the pants are) 😉 . But I still like the effect! For more practising I might need an assistant who is willing to bike in circles so that I get multiple trials for this kind of shot 😉 . Volunteers let yourself know!

About half an hour later, finally the sun managed to find its way through the clouds. More or less at the same time I arrived at a small pond in the woodland. This resulted in the photo below, and you can see the total different atmosphere! This is not all due to the sun, I am also playing around in Lightroom to find my style. The issue is that I find it very hard to stick to one specific look for all photos. So you can see in this post that there are very different kind of styles. Sometimes I like the high-contrast black and white. Sometimes I prefer softer colors and atmosphere. For now I tell myself that I am still learning, and it’s okay not to settle for one recognisable look and feel.

My dream woodland photo is one with sun rays through the trees. I tried several ones this day, but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for 😉 . You could also say that’s a good thing, so I can keep on looking. It would be disastrous if I had made the ultimate picture, because what would I be doing next?

Here are my attempts at finding the ‘magical-fairy-tale-woodland-in-the-sun’ photo.

Like I said before, I can’t seem to settle on one specific style. The next photo is a good example. I like this one in black and white, it just seems to sparkle more than in color, but it’s totally different from the ones above. Or is this just my opinion? Can you see the similarities in all of them?

Thanks for reading!