East Iceland - The first images

Early August 2021 was and forever will be a special memory in my mind. Finally going back to Iceland for a photography workshop. After all this time at home (well, just a year, but it felt like muuuch longer) I got to travel again and co-host a photography workshop together with my good friend Páll Jökull. And East Iceland was on the menu.

Together with two amazing clients we’ve explored East Iceland all the way from South to North, and even went inland a little bit here and there. This part of the country was new for me, so I was obviously super pumped to get out there and see new places.

It was special, emotional and everything and more I hoped it to be. To be out in the field with Páll and teaching compositions, timing your shots, several technical aspects together with him is exactly what I needed after feeling quite down and out for a long time. The fact that we always have a tiny and very private/personal group really adds to the great feeling of our tours. It feels like being out with friends and when everyone is likeminded and has the same goal beautiful things are bound to happen. Behind and in front of our cameras. Below are some shots from the trip. Make sure to click them to see them in their original aspect ratio.

Thank you for watching and reading!

I will be updating my Iceland Gallery on my website soon, and there will be loads of photographs from this trip on other blogposts and on my social media: Instagram, Facebook and such.

And of course I did bring my drone, and shoot some video. Here’s the first video of one of the waterfalls we’ve visited and photographed during this workshop. There will be more video and drone footage coming up later on once I’ve gotten round to editing and putting everything together.

Drone Photography - The Tuspeel

The Tuspeel measures 29 hectares and is probably the southernmost toponym that still contains the word 'peel'. With raised bog as the main feature of the area, the name is not so remarkable. Where 'tus' comes from is a mystery. It is a name that has been used for a long time; it was already called that at the beginning of the 20th century. From the very wet core of the area peat has never been dug away to disappear as peat in the stove. As a result, a number of characteristic species of a raised bog vegetation still occur here. The special area can be experienced from the edges. There are several freely accessible footpaths around the wet core.

The Tuspeel remains moist because of a loam layer in the soil. Peat formed in the depressions, but was not extracted as peat as in most of Limburg. This meant that the characteristic bog flora remained intact. This includes one-haired meadow grass and peat moss, white beak rush, sundew and in the pools floating pondweed and water thrift. Small cranberry, heather and lavender heather are also found. In the dry parts of the reserve one finds, among other things, spiny broom and sand blue.

The animal world includes: small green frog, two salamander species, more than ten species of dragonfly, greenhorn and phegea butterfly.

In the immediate vicinity of the area there are large ponds created by gravel extraction, in particular the Lange Vlieter, today a basin for the water supply company, and the recreational lake Lange Peel.

High drifting dunes around the bog core are planted with Scots pine and American oak. This is where the great spotted woodpecker and the green woodpecker nest. A small herd of horses graze the dry areas throughout the year, ensuring that most of the area does not become overgrown with birch forest.

Zwart Water Venlo - Fujifilm XT4

Yesterday before going to work I went into this area that I really like. It has a beautiful forest and a nice lake. It is located north of the city of Venlo. I had little over an hour to spend before starting my shift at work.

Just walking around with my Fujifilm XT4 and 16-80mm F4 and snapping some straight forward shots. The way the XT4 captures colors and details still amazes me. How I love this camera!

Photographing wild Garlic - Savelsbos

It is spring right now and it is the time of the year where everything is growing and coming back to life in nature. In the south of the province I live in there is this beautiful forest that has wild garlic in it and this time of year these plants look really nice when they are blooming. The forest floor is covered in white and it just looks so nice something that is really interesting to photograph and to portray spring. This forest is called Savelsbos and it's located outside of the town of Margraten.

Some areas inside of this forest are off-limits because they are protected. As I was walking through the forest I noticed a few damaged plants and newly made tracks through the plants. This is something I just can't understand people do. I am all for trying to get a special shot in order to get a unique composition but I won't go as far as obviously breaking the rules and damaging plant/wildlife. There is plenty of awesome shots to take here even when you just stick to the marked roads and paths.

Luckily there was not a lot of damaged plants and wildlife t spot aside from a few places. The wild garlic is actually a protected plant and it is obviously forbidden to take them away, or destroy them.

These flowers will only be in this state and have this look for the next coming weeks and when summer comes the white flowers will be gone. The forest really smells like onion and garlic during this time of year and we don't have a lot of forest around where this plant grows. Below you can see a couple more shots that I took in this forest. I really liked strolling around here taking it easy and enjoying nature.

This shot below is a panorama made up of several vertical images. All handheld shots stitched in Adobe lightroom