Windmill in Holland
Jan, 2018Views
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Behind The Lens
Location
This shot was taken in Kinderdijk, a village in South Holland province, known for its iconic 18th-century windmills. Kinderdijk is located pretty close from Rotterdam, around an hour by buss.Time
We arrived in Kinderdijk, in the afternoon, about 2 hours from sunset. It was quite an outcast day, with rain showers, just like the rest of our Holland trip. But when we got there we were lucky. The clouds started to break and we could enjoy a very nice golden hour.Lighting
The light coming from sun just breaking through the clouds is always dramatic and not very harsh. The sun was covering the scene in beautiful warm light, with a reddish tint and the low clouds were starting to catch a slight pinkish tint.Equipment
This was shot with my good old Nikon D800 and Nikkor 16-35 lens, fixed on a Sirui tripod. I used a few Lee filters (a big stopper and a neutral gradient if I remember correctly), in order to achieve a long exposure time of 20 seconds, that is long enough to give a silky texture on the water, but not too long to totally blur out the fast marching clouds.Inspiration
Whenever I am travelling to a new place, I am trying to find out what exactly is specific or traditional and worth photographing in that city or area.For Holland, it was windmills, and we searched for them in various traditional villages (Kinderdijk or Zaanse Schans) or in the dutch country side. The beautiful scene with the small wooden bridge leading to the group of windmills, covered in a beautiful light was begging for a photo so I was lucky to be in the right place and the right time to capture this charming scene.Editing
I am post-processing all my images in Photoshop, using a combination of filters (Nik Color Efex, Nik Silver Efex, Topaz Denoise) and regular Photoshop non-destructive adjustment layers. This image was already well exposed and had pretty good color range, so my job was very simple: enhance the global and local contrast, selectively increase the saturation especially for the warm colors and clean up the sensor spots.In my camera bag
Even if I don't like carrying too much, I always end up with a pretty heavy backpack. I am using Lowepro backpacks, Nikon D800 camera, and a selection of lenses that include 3 or 4 out of :Nikkor 14-24mm F2.8, Nikkor 16-35mm F4.0, Nikkor 24-70mm F2.8, Nikkor70-200mm F4, Nikkor 50mm F1.4 and Nikkor 85mm F1.8. Since I am doing quite a lot of long exposure photography, I am carrying 2 system of filters: 100 mm Lee one and 150MM Haida one (for Nikkor 14-24). The regular filters are ND 10 stops (big stopper), ND 6 stops (little stoppers), ND 2 or 3 stops, gradual ND (1,2,3 stops) and circular polarizer. I am always having with me a tripod (lately it is a carbon Sirui tripod) and a ballhead (Kirk). Obviously my backpack has additional batteries, memory cards and some cleaning accessories.Feedback
I have some advice for people looking to capture the beauties of our world: - go out as much and possible and try to go to places that inspire you. Being in front of a scene of tremendous beauty is stimulating your creativity and improve the chances to return with a great addition to your portfolio - go out even if the weather forecast is not looking that good. Sometimes the most stunning light can be when a sudden break in the clouds is allowing the sun to lighten the surroundings - have a good understanding of the place you will be visiting, what kind of scenes to expect and what would you like to photograph. This allows you to have the right equipment and give you an idea upfront what to look for when searching for your next composition
