Photography day

A long day with photography and videography awaits Peter and me.
We left Delfzijl at 04:00 am, heading for the Veluwe area, mid Netherlands. Our destination: Ermelosche Heide.
The heather is in full bloom nowadays, so our plan was to capture that at dawn. After a short coffee break we arrived at the heather field at 06:00, 40 minutes before sunrise. Perfect!

Photography and looking for compositions started right away.
I managed to step into a hidden rabbit hole and went all of a sudden down knee deep, with my right leg. Because of that I fell on the ground in a sort of slow motion. It didn't hurt much and after a good laugh we went on with photography.

After the heather we went straight on to a forest, the Speulderbos was nearby. The moment we walked into it, a man with two dogs stopped us asking where we were going. To the dancing, curved trees, I said. The you are going in the wrong direction, he said. The other way (180 opposite) is the way you want to go. But I'd been here several time before and always went this way, I said. You're right he answered. That's where everyone is going, but trust me, I'm directing you to a less known spot with lots of curved trees.
So, we thanked him, turned around and within a kilometer we were amidst the scene we were looking for. Beautiful! And not a single person anywhere near. Photography started again, and we were busy for almost 2 hours.
This was turning into a great day!

Around 10:30 we became a bit hungry, so we bought some bread and drinks in Garderen, in a small supermarket. But we needed coffee as well. That was found in de Rozentuin. Great! we enjoyed it with an apple pie.

What's next? 
By now the light was harsh and temperature was rising. Photography conditions went on hold for a while. We decided to go to Zeewolde, near Harderwijk, to fly our drones over a tulip shaped island.
After a 40 minutes drive we arrived on a small beach. We enjoyed our supermarket lunch there and then went flying. But the wind was very strong, making the drones not very happy.

Our next destination was Giethoorn. Up north again.
A one hour drive.
Once there we rented a boat for 90 minutes and explored the small canals and lake. Great fun. No photography at all, but I captured some nice video footage. I'm actually capturing the whole day on video. It will be edited into another Youtube-report.
When that's ready, I'll post the link here.  [update Aug 29: the video is ready. The link to it is now activated]

Our boat was handed over again at 15:30, after 87 minutes. During our drink at the terrace news came in that Peter had won a mug and tickets for the television show of Gijs Groenteman and Marcel van Roosmalen next Monday. The first broadcast of the new season. Fantastic!
We've been here before in December 2023, and we already wanted to go again. But now we're even invited and can go for free! Plans were made, Bas (still on Mallorca) was informed; he responded quickly and enthusiastically that he would join as well.
Great!

Whats' next? 
Dokkum. Another drive up north for 1 hour.
There we had our dinner, a simple fries menu in a local pub / snack bar. But still delicious. We also captured a nice location with a windmill, but not for long because we wanted to capture the sunset in Moddergat, on the Frisian wadden coastline.

But, once at that location, we were dissapointed.
I've been here before lots of times, years ago, but it looked nowhere near a beautiful as I remembered it. Once it was green, with nice mud structures. Perfect for photography. Now we saw nothing but mud, footsteps and ruined green grass. 
On top of that, the light was not what we hoped for. It was a bleak milky white light. Was all this worth waiting for over 1 hour for the sun to set?
Nope! we were tired and decided to go home early. Sunset was skipped.
No problem, we have had a fantastic day!