Zoomland a decade. 

Zoomland a decade, 10 years at un regular times and season I visited this forest with vast avenues of beech trees. These avenues used to be the access paths to estates in this part of the forest, these days only the avenues and some narrow canals are the only witnesses of that time. The forest consists mainly of remnants of ice age sand drifts. The diversity is very varied with deciduous trees, pine trees, low bushes and open areas of grass where cattle used to graze. Fens and patches of heather can also be found. Rare and common mushrooms are found in autumn. In spring, some wildflower species can also be found including bluebells. On weekends, the forest is the domain of hiking people with their four-legged friends as well as mountain bikers. It is better to avoid weekends as a photographer. During weekdays it is very quiet generally. If you go on a weekday very early in the morning as an example around sunrise it is pleasant to be there, slowly the sun’s rays hit the water and land and warm the surface so that slowly the moisture evaporates and turns into fog. When it is spring and the leaves come back on the branches, the green is so fresh, tender and beautiful in color, the ferns also shoot out of the ground and the leaves of the beech trees turn from reddish brown to orange-brown, that you actually imagine yourself in autumn. There is much to see and photograph, when you are absorbed in photographing you forget the time and your head becomes very calm. The best thing is to let it sink in and use your senses while photographing, you are in a kind of meditative state and let the colors, shapes and also smells take you in. The forest always smells and that is specially those earthy tones. So I will now let the photos that I have taken over time in piece of the forest speak for themselves. Adjacent forests in the area are Landgoed Lievensberg and Zurenhoek as well as Groot Molenbeek also these are worth a visit if you are in the area.  

The gear:

Olympus EM-1 MK, MKII, MKIII camera body’s

OM System OM-1 

MZuiko Pro lenses 60mm macro

12-40mm f/2.8 Pro

7-14mm f/2.8 Pro

40-150mm f/2.8 Pro

300mm f/4 Pro

Leofoto tripod and Olympus photo bag