A new year, new promises? I don’t know, but what I do know is that the first two weekends of this year really had some nice weather. Meaning sun finally, some clouds, no rain (yes!) and good light. For me the perfect opportunity to get my camera and start shooting again, because that was quite a while ago. This blog and the second one (see the next one) are all about me getting back to the dunes, just for fun, no expectations.

I’ll keep this one short. After a few weeks not really taking any photographs I needed to go outside and shoot. My plan was to go early into the woods, specifically to Spleuderbos as I did here, but the lack of mist and the promise of a clear beautiful day I decided to go birding at the Oostvaardersplassen.

A weekend escape just the two of us, going on a hike and bird watching from a special photo hide, a hut so to say, in the east of The Netherlands. The bird watching spot is situated in the area of the Sallandse heuvelrug, therefor we also decided to do a day hike there and as it’s quite a drive we decided to stay the weekend, nice!

Staycation in the Netherlands, or better, a nice vacation with family in times of Covid-19 that turned out to be a really fun and relaxing one! This year no mountains and epic hikes or glaciers at you doorstep, but a relaxing Dutch landscape and family around. In search of wildlife and especially birds.

So going through photo’s recently I discovered that I love golden hour, but who doesn’t as a landscape photographer. However I’m not so much a blue-purple hour photographer i.e. the time between golden hour and blue hour. Man - all those hours, by the way a big tip, they’re not actually hours, so be aware.

So this blog post is an oldie, winter photography in the dunes, where I was in search of deer and foxes with the Fujinon 100-400mm lens. Started to enjoy this lens more and more. Really looking forwards to whatever the X-H2 would offer.

When times are difficult of stressful I always tend to go back to what I really love to do. That is photography and cycling. However where cycling is still possible in the Netherlands, going out in nature is still a bit of a problem as too many people do this, especially with the nice weather of the last weeks.

This was on our wish list for a while now. Travel to Lapland, above the arctic circle, experience the snow and the cold, the wide open space and nature. Also, snowshoeing, dogsledding, going out in the wilderness with snowmobiles had also something to do with wanting to go to Lapland.

It all started with the idea to go to another part of the dunes, namely Nationaal Park Zuid Kennemerland. The first time I visited the park, I was in search of the European bison, also called the Wisent here. However I did not want to give up, so more than a year later, a retry.