The windmills of Zaanse Schans.

As I mentioned in yesterdays blip, Peter and I came up with a photography plan for this weekend.

For my birthday in April Peter gave me voucher for a day of wildlife photography complete with lunch, snacks and dinner. In 2018 I gave him a similar voucher, and I probably will do that again later this year. My guess is I'll get another voucher in April 2020.

We decided that we wanted to schedule that day before both our summerholidays and after some calculating we concluded it had to be this weekend. As location we set our minds on an area near Amsterdam, just south of Zandvoort. In these dunes it is said you can photograph foxes fairly easy. And we both never had a wild fox in our frame.

But... to be there on the right time (sunrise around 5.30 am) we would have to leave in the middle of the night. Why not book a hotel and already leave on Saturday afternoon. Suddenly our whole weekend was filled with photography. I like these unexpected surprises!

A hotel was booked in Hoofddorp (near Schiphol Airport) and we left around 16.00 hours. We checked in at approx 18.30, had a quick dinner an then left for the Zaanse Schans. A bonus location because we had and evening to fill in. Zaanse Schans (near Zaandam) is a worldfamous dutch area with 10 windmills. Lots and lots of (Japanese) tourists visit this typical dutch site every day. We both had never been there.
The weather wasn't too great, no sun so the light wasn't too good for a great photo. Actually, the light was very bad. All dull and grey. No tourist to be seen either, so that was nice. We had the place for ourselves.

We walked around for a few hours and made several different compositions. Without the necessary light it was hard to get a nice photo. I myself found the location very disapointing. The scene was a mess and the mills werre surrounded by industry. On op of that a tour-boat was docked on a jetty blocking the 'honeypot-view' of Zaanse Schans. That was a pity, but it forced us to get creative. 

When it was getting dark some Japanese dudes, smoking weed, took over the place and the atmosphere became a bit spooky. Time to leave.

Back in the hotel around 23.00 hours we did a bit of post processing and then went to bed. The alarm clock was set on 04.15. There are foxes to be captured tomorrow!