Fire and ice.

And again my day started early today. Alarm at 06.00. Photography is calling me!
Together with Peter and (as yesterday) Richard, we went to National Park Dwingelderveld, near Dwingeloo. A 64 km ride.

We arrived well before sunrise and while walking towards the lake I picked as location, we saw a complete orange sky through the trees. We almost couldn't believe it. Already?? It's 07.45 and the sun will come at 8.47. That orange already?? Wow, that looked very promising.

We found our spot and it was amazing. Colours all over the place. Purple, blue, orange. The whole package.
Everything fell into place. The preparations, the timing, the weather, everything. We all went silent and got to work.
We were stood on a very boggy and wet surface, so we could barely move. Tricky! But we all got our tripods in place on a good spot.
It wasn't as cold as yesterday, but still there was a thin layer of ice on the water. Our 'cream on the cake'.

I exposed several times and because changing composition was a challenge (boggy-wise) I tried several different tehniques, such as long exposures with the LEE Little Stopper. We had plenty of time, the sun wouldn't come for the next 45 minutes and there was hardly any wind. The clouds weren't moving fast.
It's been a long time since I've had such a great dawn-patrol! what a great way to end 2019. Well, almost....tomorrow there's some photography on the agenda as well. More about that later.

Finally the sun came and the atmosphere changed. Different light, different mood, but still jaw dropping beautiful.
The light was georgeous. The water looked steely cold blue and the sky was warm yellowish-orange. Opposite colours, matching perfectly.

I saw the light on the reed (correct word?) next to me and I wanted to capture it. It was a pity I couldn't get it more balanced in the photo (boggy-wise), but the colours were so fantastic, I had to make this photo.
Maybe the photo is a bit heavy on the left side, but I think the yellow/orange colours on the right balances the photo again. Do you agree?

When the light became too harsh, the magic was over and we had a coffee at the car. After that we drove to Groningen where Peter bought himself a new tripod. A beautiful one too! I know you'll have lots of fun with it Peter!

About tomorrow:
Groningen city is on the agenda. Annemarie and I will be walking a route through the heart of the city, that will lead us to 21 small, ancient courtyards, beguinages, poor houses and so on. A historical route. Should be fun. I'm taking my 50mm f/1.2 prime with me.