Exhibition

The Wild Brown Bear lodge near the Russian border in the neighbourhood of Kuhmo Finland is a very special place. Between April and September this is one of the finest places for brown bear photography in Europe. This year, the lodge is celebrating it's 10th anniversary. Congratulations to Ari Saaski and his team! Starting from coming May, the bear adventure can be followed each night via a dedicated bearcam. A world premiere! I'm looking forward. Last year I visited this wonderful place twice and also in 2009 two visits are planned. Who said that bear photography is addicting? Ari asked me to participate in the special anniversary exhibition. So I send him 7 of my best photos made in his lodge. They are shown in this post. If you like to obtain more information, to view the bearcam or to make a reservation please visit http://www.wildbrownbear.fi/. Highly recommended!

Cheers,
Dirk-Jan

A pleasant surprise

The usual species that come to visit the feeders and pool at the forest hide are great tit, marsh tit, blue tit, eurasian nuthatch, chaffinch, common blackbird, dunnock, robin, and great spotted woodpecker. They give a lot of photographic motifs and opportunities. Yesterday I was honoured with a special guest in front of the lens. This female grey wagtail was near the pool for a few minutes. I hadn't expected this species at all. Hopefully, she stays in the neighbourhood and comes to pay me a visit again.

Best regards,

Dirk-Jan

The magic of reflection!

It's no secret. A lot of bird photographers are inspired by the magnificent work of Bence Mate http://www.matebence.hu/ , including me. What this guy already achieved at his young age ....... he won important prices in photography and, recently, he even started his own business with his hides. The keys to his success are hides, pools, birds, and ...... the magic of reflection. This afternoon, I experienced the wonderful world of reflection from behind my own camera. It definately tastes for more. Let's challenge my creativity with different bird species and their behaviour, under different lighting conditions, and with different decorations!


Best regards,
Dirk-Jan

Battle for the food

Every day a lot of birds come and visit the feeders in front of the hide. When I'm in the hide only one of the feeders is left at a selected position. The cue in front of the feeder sometimes reminds me of a busy airport. Every now and then the birds start to fight for the food. Today a blue tit and a great tit started to fight on my photographic branch, which was positioned about half a meter above the ground. They ended fighting on the ground. Such an action takes place in a split second and it's a hard job to get focused pictures of the decisive moment. It certainly helps that the autofocus of the Nikon D3 and the AF-S VR 300/2.8 are very responsive. Today I managed to get the following action shot of two fighting tits. I'm not satisfied for the full 100%. There is room for improvement, but the beginning is there. More opportunities will hopefully follow. The fighting arena needs to be optimized and better weather is welcome. Today it was cloudy and I needed ISO 2000 to get shutterspeeds of about 1/1000 sec. Such fast shutterspeeds are necessary to freeze such action.




Greetings,
Dirk-Jan

First results from the hide

After some weeks of preparation, inspiration, and fine-tuning, I spend last Saterday in the hide for my first serious bird photography attempts. In order to make attractive pictures of rather 'normal' bird species one has to carefully selected the decoration in the scene. Here are the first results of two rather normal birds in an early spring setting with catkins of the common hazel. I'm quite excited with the possibilities and opportunities of my outdoor photography studio. More to follow..............

Cheers,

Dirk-Jan

Bird photography pool at eye level

Today, the final phase of the hide project is finished (see post of late December 2008). My dad and I prepared a pool in front of the hide. First we planned its position and, most importantly, its height while watching through the 600 mm lens. We leveled the bottom and sides of the pool, placed the foil and filled it with water by using a plunge pump and aggregate. Styling the sides with materials from the forest (left side with moss and a tree trunk, right side with soil, and the backside is 'just' a straight leveled water-line). After this labour we took a relaxing seat in the hide and enjoyed the birds that were almost instantly around us. We spotted over 40 birds of 8 species within a quarter of an hour. The feeders are doing a terrific job! Probably I have to do some restyling in the coming weeks, but what I saw through the camera this afternoon gave me already a lot of satisfaction. I can't wait to start photographing.

Best regards,

Dirk-Jan

Icy weekend

The Markermeer is frozen. Due to the wind and current the ice slowly moves in this large water surface. Large and small plates of ice slide on top of each other. The result is drifting ice, which settles at our dikes in beautiful patterns. Last weekend, I mainly focussed on the photography of this rare phenomenon. This happens once in a few years. Due to global warming it will become even more rare in the future. Crawling on the ice with a wide-angle lens in order to seek for nice compositions caused my knees to become black and blue. But the results are worth this 'sacrifice'. I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Greetings,

Dirk-Jan