Noir Flohay & Baraque Michel

A beautiful winters day in Belgium. Hiking with my dad and brother. We were just enjoying ourselves and taking it easy as we were walking towards Noir Flohay in the Baraque Michel area of the "The High Fens"

The High Fens is a nature reserve located at an altitude of 700 meters on the border of eastern Belgium and Germany. The area is characterized by, due to the high altitude, extreme rainfall. But also a lot of fog and in the winter lots of snow. An ideal area for photography. On the vast plateau you will find scattered solitary trees and groups of trees.

One of the most beautiful places on the plateau is the burnt forest Noir Flohay. Over 10 years ago, a fire destroyed this piece of forest and now there are only bare, partly blackened trees. A wonderful place to stroll around and enjoy the bizarre shapes that some trees have.

And here’s a few more drone photographs of a nearby forest. Managed to capture some of that beautiful winter afternoon light!

And why not watch this drone video footage I also managed to capture whilst spending some time here. Feel free to subscribe to my Youtube channel if you liked this video for updates on more content in the future. Thank you!

October Workshop, the End of Summer

Ran a beautiful Landscape Photography workshop today. Just with one client so the whole program was really custom and flexible. We did go to the “Leudal” which you probably know by now. My local forest and little nature reserve with beautiful woodlands, a forest stream and a big variety of flora.

Autumn is around the corner and the colors in the landscape were just starting to turn, nothing too vibrant yet, still very green. But you could see, feel and smell that Autumn is not far away now. Below are some shots of the day, if you want to join these workshops check out this link

Forest Photography - Fog & Soft Light - Fujifilm XT4

Early morning in the local forest with a nice amount of fog and beautiful light. I had a rough night sleep, woke up way to early. And heading out in the forest was medicine for body and soul. When wandering out in the nature with these conditions you just calm down. Slow down and just start to feel better straight away. All shots were taken with my FujiFilm XT4 and a 16-80mm F4 lens, handheld.

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.