In this second blog from my micro-retreat in my own ‘backyard’ I like to take an approach of discovery. Can I still discover in an area close to home that I already know? Let’s find out.

I love discovery, from the adventurous exploration to the scientific search for knowledge. I became an engineer but there is a scientist in me somewhere, that got some training along the way in university also. A big motivation for my career-life was to travel and live on different continents (meet my wife on one, get a second daughter on another). So there has always been a search for adventure in me, too. But like that great song from Tiesto goes:

You can travel the world but you can’t run away
From the person you are in your heart

Etc… you can probably figure out where this is going or else look it up (Just Be). Point being made is: I’ve got to find the really beautiful and importing things in my life right here where I am, which is home. Landscape photography already taught me that a couple of years ago. Often the best pictures are made in your own familiar surrounding, because you know it best, both the location and soul of it.

Let’s start early! I got up around six and after a small breakfast, coffee and packing some gear I was on my way a good hour before sunrise. I used my head torch on low intensity to see directly in front of me. I had a route planned that would take me through some untracked dune area and across some “verboden toegang” fences (sorry: left no trace, made no sound) for which I needed the light. Other than that, I like to keep it as dark as possible for my eyes to see further. A colony of cormorants lives in the area I passed in the dark/dusk so I put the torch below my bush hat and angled it down so as not to disturb them. I looked for a good spot by the lake for a sunrise picture with them but it wasn’t good. I spotted them earlier this year in spring so here’s a couple of pictures from that time.

I went a bit more inland along the coast. Real sunrise pictures weren’t working very well: the sky at the time was too clean and the land was too flat. I did use it as a backdrop for this giant beach tree, surrounded by a lovely birch-oak forest.

After sunrise I moved toward the beach and the dune landscape became more open, grassy, sandy, mossy. I saw some lovely beachgrass (Helm in Dutch) and I can’t get enough of photographing that. A real typical of this area (I guess I found its soul…). I guess with the increase in Nitrogen (stikstof) deposition in Holland we’re going to see more of it - I’m trying to see things positive here, human impact on the ecosystem is a sensitive topic for me.

As I walked further I came on the beach where about a decade ago sand deposition had created a peninsula called De Zandmotor, a typical feat of Dutch waterworks. The once large body of sand has now been spread out along the coastline, streghtening the beaches far and beyond against erosion and the rising sea level. What is left is still an impressive vast beach landscape with sporadic beachgrass, a lagoon, and… a seal! I spotted it when it was swimming and looking at me. Then it went down and came back, popping its head up now and then. That’s when I took these photos.

So what about going for discovery in your own surrounding?
I saw a sea mammal in my ‘backyard’ that I had never seen here before. I’m still excited about it!.
I keep discovering new seagrass (helms-grass) in different light and compositions that I just love to photograph…
And when I walked on that extended beach area I felt like I was on another planet, so wide, open, no one there. Like Mars. Except I don’t have to go to Mars to experience it. I rather preserve this place that is much more facinating.

I hope you can also discover new things in your surrounding, I’m sure they’re there.