I Head Out and Let Myself Be Surprised!

Saturday 22 May 2021, 23:23 by Erik Nevels | 4,321 views | 0 comments

This article was translated from Dutch with the help of AI. Read the original.

How do you head out? Do you have a plan? Are you perhaps working on a project? Or do you let yourself be surprised? I almost always head out using all three approaches at once. That has its pros and cons! In this first of three blogs, I’ll tell you about the surprises that came my way over the past few weeks.

Location

However I work, I always choose a location where I’m going to take photographs, and of course I don’t do that just like that. I go there with a plan. Whether you’re a nature photographer like me, photograph architecture, landscapes, people and so on.

I think you choose your location with the aim of photographing birds, buildings, the setting sun or a football match there. But once I’m there, I’m almost always open to surprising images. In my case, in nature.

Equipment

Just in case a surprise comes along, I usually head out with a full rucksack. As well as my camera, of course, I take all my lenses, from wide-angle through macro to telephoto, a flash, tripod, reflectors, sit mats and a few other aids.

That’s quite a few kilos to carry, and therefore one of the disadvantages. Not to mention the money represented by all that equipment. And all of it just in case.

A broader view

Recently, I was walking through the fields with my 200-600mm lens on the camera, looking for birds in the reeds. I cautiously approached a stand of reeds beside the local river, the Maas. I had just seen a small bird fly towards it.

When I had got to within a few metres, I took the time to spot the bird. But no matter how carefully I searched, I couldn’t see it.

I’ve taught myself that when I’m standing still, I shouldn’t just stare in one direction, but look around me as well. In other words, look further than what I’m specifically looking for, take a broader view.

That’s what I did then, and through the narrow stand of reeds I saw something moving in the water. At first I suspected it was a carp coming up for air. I kept watching and was delighted to see the head of a beaver.

Wow, how great, it hadn’t seen me. Luckily, I didn’t need to change lenses or adjust my settings.

As the animal swam past, I was able to take several shots. In less than 5 seconds, the opportunity was gone and it disappeared underwater. If I had focused purely on the bird, I probably wouldn’t have noticed the beaver.

Sony A7 mark III, 600mm, f/6.3, shutter speed 1/1600s, ISO 1000

Plan with a limited shelf life

Two weeks ago, I wrote my previous blog about photographing butterflies in the morning dew. My friend and I had planned that day to photograph orange tips while they were still covered in dew on their food plant, the cuckooflower.

The plan worked. We found the butterflies and had time to photograph them covered in drops of dew. Until about 9.30 am. Shelf life over, the fun and peace were over too, because that was when the butterflies started flying. There’s little point in running after them then.

In short, we had carried out our plan and still had time left. No fixed plan, we would see what happened. From that moment on, I walked through the fields differently. With a more open view. My ears alert for birds.

I swapped the macro lens for my 200-600 because I can do a lot with it. A black woodpecker showed itself beautifully, but unfortunately it was quite far away.

The pond we walked past caught our attention. Sun and water create the opportunity for beautiful bokeh, so we went looking for a subject in the foreground.

The telephoto lens was swapped for the macro lens, and we found the cuckooflower. However, although there was bokeh, it didn’t give me that WOW feeling.

Just as I was about to take the camera off my tripod, a fly landed on the flower. What a surprise when I saw the creature strongly magnified in the viewfinder, that head and WOW, what a compound eye.

Quickly deciding on the composition and focusing on the fly’s eye. Click, got it!

Sony A7 mark III, 90mm, f/3.2, shutter speed 1/1000s, ISO 160

Dandelion

Last week, I went out looking for orange tips again in the morning. I found and photographed one. Almost exactly at half past nine, he called it a day and flew off in search of females.

While walking back to the car, I saw a faded dandelion beside the path, with the top seeds already blown away by the wind.

The sunlight was still shining on it somewhat through the bushes, so I stopped and tried to picture the image in front of me. Just the flower against a black background. I had just packed everything away, but couldn’t resist unpacking it all again. Here’s the result.

Sony A7 mark III, 90mm, f/7.1, shutter speed 1/400s, ISO 400

The moral of this blog

If you stay open to surprises alongside your plan, my experience is this: look, and they are bound to come. If you have all your equipment with you, you can take the photograph too. I’m happy to carry it all around for a day.

A successful surprise photograph more than makes up for the realisation that once again today, I carried far more with me than I used.

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