Forest Wonderlands: Photos of Woods in the Netherlands

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I recently shared photos of landscapes in the Netherlands turning purple in August. For my latest series, I wanted to show the lesser-known beautiful areas of my country.

The Netherlands is famous for the beautiful canals in Amsterdam, the tulips, and of course the windmills. The the Netherlands also has some beautiful forests that you can get lost in for hours.

Forests are something different than normal landscapes. Especially for photographers, forests offer countless different compositions even in a very small area because of the different lighting and the shapes of the trees.

These last few days have been very foggy in my country. Everyone around me was complaining about it being “gray” and depressing. I always tell them: “Take a stroll around your local forest, and you’ll be amazed by the beautiful atmosphere.”

Because that’s when forests become magical: when there’s fog separating the trees from each other, it’s like walking in a fairy tale.

These photos were all taken in the Netherlands.

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‘The Elder’ When it’s grey and foggy outside, try taking a stroll through the forest. The mist separates the trees creating a beautiful spooky atmosphere.

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‘Dwarf Lane’ Paths and roads that go into the distance look amazing with the right conditions. If you want to take photos like this, make sure to use a long lens (100mm+) . This makes everything in the distance looks compressed.

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‘Season’s Change’ The change into autumn gives the trees all kinds of colours making it my favourite season to photograph the forests.

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‘Light Play’ An early autumn morning where the sunlight finds its way through the leaves giving a nice contrast between the lights and shadows.

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‘Standing Strong’ Even in summer when the forests are completely green everything still has a great atmosphere. I am always amazed at some distinctive shapes of trees I find.

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‘Curvy Path’ Even during very grey and rainy weather the forests still have a very interesting atmosphere: dark and moody.

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‘Red and Green’ The details of leaves on the trees are beautiful especially when there is great separation with the right light.

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‘Shrooms’ Early morning in the beginning of autumn with the early morning light blasting through the trees. The shrooms are a nice detail in this time of year. You can find them everywhere if you look for them.

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‘The Last Leaves’ A road near my house changes every few days when the end of autumn approaches. In the foreground trees there are still some red leaves that get hit my the sunlight every morning. The rest of the lane is nearly empty already.

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‘The Last Man Standing’ Different elements come together with fascinating tree branches creating pieces of art by itself.

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‘Lined Up’ Some forests are planted. This doesn’t have to be ‘bad’ as they always look very interesting because all of the trees are lined up.

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‘Ray Explosion’. The best time for seeing and photographing sunrays are the early hazy cloudless sunny mornings. This combination makes it ideal for seeing them. In forests, mostly in dark parts the filtered light finds it’s way through the openings of the branches and leaves, making focused sunrays that look magical.

Zig Zag

‘Zig Zag’ Curvy roads between trees can create an amazing effect when using long lenses to photograph them. This is a ‘famous’ photo that raises many questions, mainly about the light in the background. This light is actually from a combination of 2 cards, 1 from headlights and one from tail lights. It’s not a fire and it’s no sunlight.

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‘Golem Road’ This is the end of autumn and beginning of winter. The trees lose all of their leaves and you can view all kinds of crazy shapes when walking through the forest. Paths can really create a leading line when shooting photos.

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‘The Golden Path’ Combine late autumn with a hazy sunny morning and you get very soft golden light making everything look gold as orange of the leaves get lit.

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‘The Last Colour’ The end of autumn when the last leaves are on the trees is a great time to check out the forest as you can spot many details on the last leaves on the farm trees.

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‘Roots’ Roots of trees can be fascinating as they’re often not buried in the ground completely.

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‘Road to infinity’ Car roads with trees next to them can be a nice subject to shoot with long lenses. You can spot them everywhere around you, it doesn’t even have to be at a forest!

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‘Forest Family’ Fog separating the trees at the beginning of winter makes you see all of the shapes of the trees.


About the author: Albert Dros is a photographer based in Amsterdam. You can find more of his work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Flickr.

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