I love wandering through the mist. Just me and my camera, lost in a mystical world. It doesn’t only have a visual impact, but all sounds are silenced as well.

In the mist I have to work harder to get that specific image I want to show to the viewer. The framing and content is not only choosen by me, but is heavily influenced by the circumstances. But .. in the end it’s all worth it.

Check my set “Mystical Mist” on Flickr to see more photos with mist.

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All images: Fuji XPRO1 + Fujinon XF 18mm f/2.0 R
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

The great thing about these are that they are light, portable and flexible. I can use the griptight with any phone  and I don’t have to take off my case to use it like I did with the Glif. I can use the Gorillapod in trees, fences on the floor. There is allways something available to tangle the three legs around.

I have used this gear to make some long exposure photography with my iPhone. I use the Average Camera Pro (AvgCamPro) app which takes up to 128 photos and extracts the best pixels to make a final image. This is even better than long exposure photography apps out there. It makes water look gorgeously and silky. I also used Kitcam to get myself on some photos. It’s fun and adds new possibilities to my work.

I am going to buy a ND10 filter for my X-Pro soon and finally put the things I learned from the Long Exposure eBook by David Cleland (Flixelpix) into practice. If you haven’t already, It’s a must have for anyone wanting to try long exposure photography with any camera.

I am very happy with these, they fit my current setup.

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All images: Fuji XPRO1 + Fujinon XF 35mm f/1.4 R (first) + XF 60mm f/2.4 macro (rest)
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

They announce the arrival of spring by opening and exposing their beauty. Just for a short while.. until their beautiful petals falls to the ground and spring proceeds.

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All images: Fuji X-PRO1 + Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 R macro
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

I got all three lenses when I bought my Fuji X-Pro1 camera, the 18mm 2.0, 35mm 1.4 and the 60mm 2.4 macro primelenses. The 18mm and 35mm were lenses I started using right away. The 35mm as my allround lens and the 18mm when was going out to take some landscape photography. The 60mm was a bit of a leftover. I really wondered whether I would really use it that much..

After six months of using the new camera and lenses I have been using the 60m lens more and more. To me the Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 macro is a very special lens. It’s not quite the fastest lens in the line of Fujinon lenses, but when used in the right way it is sharp like a razor. The possibility to shoot macro is a big plus for me. Although the macro capabilities are limited to a maximum magnification of 1:2, it really creates another dimension in my work and I love using it.

I like to use this lens to show people that beauty can be found in the smallest things, and it’s a perfect tool for that job.

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All images: Fuji XPRO1 + Fujinon XF 60mm f/2.4 R macro
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

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All images: Fuji XPRO1 + Fujinon XF 18mm f/2.0 R + XF 60mm f/2.4 macro
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

And then there are these carvings in trees. Made by people leaving a message..

I see them everywhere in the forest, mostly in the biggest trees. Words, signs, names.. carved into trees. Some recent, others years ago .. or even decades.

These trees are part of ‘Landgoed Zegenwerp’, right next to the grave of Catherine Louise in my last blog post. It really is a magical place.. These trees, so old, ‘seen’ so much.. and have all these messages on them. Not to mention the etchings which have been ‘swallowed’ by them. They can’t speak, only through the carvings on their bark.

I made this blogpost before, but decided to make new photos for it last weekend. And with these I feel like I’m bare naked, because I did nothing in post-processing, these are straight out o the camera. I really love my current settings in my X-Pro1 which I will share later in a new blogpost.

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Images: Fuji X-PRO1 + Fujinon XF35mm F1.4
Processing: these are all SOOC

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Images: Fuji X-PRO1 + Fujinon XF35mm F1.4
RAWs processed in Lightroom 4 with VSCO

I had been to this location a few times before, ‘Landgoed Zegenwerp’. A rather small but impressive forest on an old estate with tall beech trees just across the river De Dommel but within a kilometer from my house.

I knew there should be a grave somewhere on the estate, I’d never seen it but had read about it in a magazine. So one day I decided to look for it. And I found it, just a few meters from where I had been photographing many times before. The grave of a small child from one of the owners in the nineteenth century: baron Willem Arnold Alting Lamoraal van Geusau and his wife Sybilla Hendrina Wilhelmina.

“Catherine Louise nee le 25 septembre, decedée le 23 octobre 1811”

And just when I discovered the grave, the sun began to shine and light started pouring into the forrest giving me a magnificent view. I just stood there. Stood there and enjoyed the moment.

The light touched a shelter just a few meters away, made by kids who play in this forrest and enjoy life. We don’t know why Catherine Louise was burried here, but it is a wonderful place for a child.. It’s a beautiful place where today’s kids play and laugh.

These photos have been on my HD for a few months, until I remembered this day and knew the story of Catherine Louise had to be told.

My journey in photography has been amazing so far. Last three years have been very exciting and has given me both great pleasure and new experiences. I’ve met new friends and I have learned a lot about social media and photography in general. A lot of it, especially in the beginning, was centralized around my photography on the iPhone.

I started using an iPhone as a camera in the end of 2009, 4 years ago. It all started while using the iPhone to capture my surroundings when I was walking the dog. This soon resulted in leaving solo on my bike (without the dog but with my iPhone), to go and explore my surroundings and share it with the world. I always had the iPhone in my hand, ready to shoot, and a Nikon D40 around my neck to make a similar photo of those special moments caught with the iPhone. The iPhone was my primary camera.

After the D40 I bought a Sony a33 and not long after that a Nikon d5100 which I both got with the 18-55 and 55-200 kit lenses. But while they were both excellent cameras, they didn’t give me the joy I had using the iPhone. The iPhone still was my primary camera.

Then, in the summer of 2011 I saw the new FujiFilm x100 in the window of a camerashop in Reims (France) and my heart skipped a beat. What a camera! The French salesman was very exciting about the x100 as well but couldn’t sell it to me as it was unavailable because of the high demand. It was sold out. After a few months, and after spending a lot of time reading blogs about -or watching photos made with- this camera by people like Zach Arias, Danny Bligh, Chris Gachot and  Jonathan Fleming I learned that the camera wasn’t just beautiful on the outside, it had some great specs as well. And a little bit later two great online friends (Dutch Doscher and Dan Berman) got it as well and were both very enthusiastic about it. So .. I decided to sell my Nikon d5100 with all the dlsr gear I had and get a myself a Fuji X100.

While the X100 was mentioned as a typical camera for streetphotography I had the feeling this could be the camera I had been looking for all this time. It just seemed the right thing to do. The camera is small, light, has beautiful design and excellent quality glass. And after buying it the camera didn’t let me down. I loved walking around with it and started using my iPhone less, because the images from the Fuji were just so much better in quality. I fell in love with photography again, for the second time in a few years. But .. after a few months I got the feeling I had arrived at a dead end. The X100 is a camera with a fixed lens (23mm), so I couldn’t invest in new glass. I also started missing the wider (18mm) focal length which I used so regularly on my Nikon. The decision was hard to make, but I did decide to sell the X100 and buy a new dslr to start building a photography gear with zoom and wide-angle lenses. It seemed as the right thing to do for my future as a landscape photographer. The X100 was sold easily, but it was the first time I had a hard time leaving a camera at the post office, my beloved X100 went all the way to the northern part of my country!

This was last august, and after a few months I still missed shooting with the Fuji. The Sony a57 is a great camera, but it just misses something for me. It was too plastic. While I used the X100 as an actual camera, the a57 was on automatic most of the time. It didn’t trigger the photographer in me. The X100 seems to have soul and push me to take better photos, be more creative. Selling the X100 was a wrong decision. Lesson learned. I missed some Fuji in my life.

And while I still love using the iPhone to capture the beauty around me, I decided to get a new camera and invest in my future in photography. While I know gear isn’t everything, I do want high resolution and pinsharp photos while keeping the cameragear to a minimum. Of course, the iPhone will be used as well. After my experiences with the X100 the X-Pro1 seemed like a logical choice. So, I got one! I blame people like Danny Bligh and Zach Arias for pushing me to this direction with their ridiculously great work.

It was a long winter, so I haven’t had too many photos taken with the X-Pro. But I loved the moments I was able to take it out for a photowalk. The X-Pro is beautiful but robust. The lenses are of great quality and I am very happy with the results.. Very happy. The X-Pro1 is everything I want in a camera. It was the right thing to do.

Last months have been exciting for me. I became a contributor to Stemmings, where I’ll be writing essays about photography and the technology and (social) media which are inseparable from – and influenced by – photography and vice versa. Last week I became a co-op of Stocksy, a stock photography co-operative owned and operated by artists.

I also have had the time to update my website. I only have to update my shop and portfolio. And I will stick to my promise about updating this blog: I will post regularly about photography and everything that comes with it. Because that’s what I love.

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All photos taken with either my fuji X100 or X-Pro1, processed with Lite.ly, new presets made by Cole Rise.
The presets are not out yet, but sign up to get early access here: http://lnc.hr/d0M16