In the dark/gray days before Christmas, the weather is not always easy to make beautiful images. I often use this time to visit new areas or to view familiar places in a different way. Most of the time I try to use my imagination and see the spot in misty conditions or in winter period with snow and or frost.

In my long-running project “autumn meets winter” I am always looking for trees that keep their leaves longer to photograph them in a winter setting. One of those trees is a native oak tree in my local patch “Het Wierdenseveld” this tree stands along the edge of a meadow and a small piece of woodland. I had seen this oak with its beautiful rust-brown leaves for several years, but I never had the opportunity to make an image of it.

However, during a winter morning I thought there is a possibility of fog because it was was a cold morning without wind, but unfortunately that was not the case at all. When I started to make composition the first rays of sun light fell nicely on this oak tree so the light was not bad, but the image lacked the tension as far as I was concerned. I made the image below of this visit.

How I captured this image and the situation in the field is shown in a short video and yes I need more practice to make this work. Most of the time I use my bike to cycle to the place, this is better for the environment and offers me more opportunities to see and make new images. For my images I always use my tripod and cable release. This gives me peace of mind and prevents motion blur in most cases.

A few weeks later the winter conditions were perfect, -8 Celsius, a little bit of mist and plenty of hoar frost. Again before sunrise on my bike to the oak tree in my local patch “Het Wierdenseveld”. Fortunately, the rust-brown leaves were still there. When I saw the composition at that moment I thought this would be a wonderful subject for a Christmas card. After some shuffling with the tripod, I was able to place all the ingredients in the composition, from the beautiful light to the pines covered with frost and the special subject in the shape of the oak.

A lovely Christmas thought to see a simple subject in a different Light.

Merry Christmas.

Otlis Sampimon Outdoor Photography