photoblog golden hours

The summer weather has been very changing the past few weeks, at the moment it is very warm here again and the last summer evenings of this year are sunny and golden.

In a very short amount of time I did a couple of photoshoots and I really would love to share my favorite ones with you. 

Some of the pictures absolutely make me feel as if these moments are too beautiful to be true!

This week I also went through the forest to reach the blooming heather which is only growing in this month and the next, but that will be for another blog.

Here now the photo's I took during the few lovely golden sunsets this week.

During one of the shoots there were so many mosquitoes unfotunately! So we had to leave the fields a little bit soon (I still have so many bites though still.. But oh well, everything for a good picture right?)

Ps. You can now book photo sessions now via my new website! + view my portfolio there. 

Have a lovely week!

Sasja

photoblog countryside picnic

Jolien, a friend of mine, who I met in highschool, is one of the happiest people I have ever met in my entire life. I love taking pictures of her because she's always very open and comfortable when I'm shooting pictures  and that is perfect for a photographer.

We had a lovely picnic under the shadow of a big tree, on one of the typical dikes you can find on the Dutch countryside. 

sadly I found out I got a really bad sunburn, I didn't recognize the sun shining so much because the wind was blowing very hard which made it seem very cool outside. 

I was glad I could take some pictures of her under the shadow of the tree and Jolien also took a few pictures with me on it.

I hope you will enjoy them.

Have a lovely day,

Sasja

visiting France

I went to France last week. It was only for one day (two days if you include all the driving 8 hours so that makes 16 back and forth), but it was really worth it. 

As some of you may know I design crochet patterns for the French company Fonty, a wool company who produce and sell 100 percent sustainable and natural yarns. 

We visisted their factory to see how all the yarn is made. 

The last time I went to France was twelve years ago, in the summer of 2007. I was really enjoying the views, the golden sunlight, the white cows resting in the warm sun, the hills, the meadows and the serene silence. 

My favorite thing were probably the quiet French villages and the lovely architecture, I would so much love to live in a French house!

We also ate in a France restaurant for lunch (ouch, we didn't know it was a daily menu and not a la carte so we almost got meat on our plates before we told the waitress that we actually don't eat meat... we got something else luckily hihi). And oh my... no one ever told me that it's normal to eat a four course lunch in France. But apparently it is ha, so that's what we got. A lot of food, I can tell.

A really nice thing I noticed is, that the villages are very quiet and there aren't many people walking outside. But still there are a few shops or restaurants in every village (which is unusual here), and surprisingly every restaurant or shop has it's customers, even in the evening hours. 

Now I will show you a few of the many pictures I took in France. We went to Rougnat by the way.

next to our hotel. can you see the waterwell? I love those.

a lovely little house with so so many flowers! we stopped the car to take a picture of  this...
then the lady of the house came outside to see what we were doing hihi. she said
bonjour though and she smiled so she didn't mind. 

the treehouse, the laundry...

beautiful French landscapes

Have a lovely week ahead,

Sasja

wildflower photo session

As the moments, days, weeks and months are passing by... we already arrived in July. which is already over fifty percent of this year. Seasons come and go and the time is flying by extremely fast. I don't really mind it, it makes times bearable when life is not easy and it makes exciting times come by more quickly.
In the days before and after the weekend of next week a few exciting things will happen which I will write later about.

But to stay on topic: yesterday evening it was sunny and warm and I asked my sister to drive us to a poppy field I saw earlier that day when I was mountainbiking on the farm roads.
It was very pretty there - the flowers were white, purple and pink and next to the field there was a small meadow with a horse mother and her foal.
But, for some reason the picture I wanted to take didn't turn out the way I wanted it to be, so we drove to another place even closre to our home. It was at the roadside, by an organic field and many blue wildflowers were growing there. As blue wildflowers are my favorite I got very happy to see them and asked my sister to stop the car.
I took some pictures of the most beautiful flowers in the evening sun and also one of my sister (with the pretty hat I gifted her), and she also took a few photo's of me. After that we collected a bouquet of the prettiest flowers to press in some old books.
I hope you will like them.

Have a lovely weekend,
Sasja

plans for this summer

• sending out some snail mail packages to Claudia from Austria and Lotte from Belgium
• hopefully pass my driving test in a few weeks.. I can't wait to drive all by myself even though I took a 4 month break from my lessons this year
• going to France 
• maybe design a new clothing piece for Fonty design team - any suggestions?
• run at least 3 times a week, 5-6 km each time. i have been doing this for a while this spring, but sadly i have a knee injury now so i can't run as fast as i like to at the moment
• take a lot of photo's for this blog and instagram 
• doing a photoshoot for something i can't say too much about just yet
• photographing the stars - again yes
• collect more flowers to pick
• find a wicker basket in a second hand shop! i've been looking for one for a while already but haven't found a good one so far.

This week I will visit the thriftshop again to look for a basket and also a bag for my camera. I will also visit the library, edit some photo's and prepare the lesson for saturday's childrens church service. And last but not least, taking driving lessons. 

my sister walking on the trees in the forest yesterday 

I'm sure there's much more to happen this summer since I dont really live a strict planned life, which is fine to me. I'm not very good at keeping a strict schedule in life, I just see what comes and goes day by day - life is full of surprises.

What are you special plans for this summer?

Sasja

trying out astrophotography

A couple of years ago, on 28 september 2015, there was a lunar eclipse visible here in the Netherlands, so I set my alarm around 3 or 4 in the morning and went outside. Back then I didn't use a tripod nor the manual settings of my system camera. Eventually the pictures turned out very hazy, there was movement visible and I couldn't really even see the red moon. I was very dissapointed and a little upset because it didn't work out while I knew that it must have been possible tot take clear pictures of this special moment. In the end I went to bed again that morning, without any pictures of the lunar eclipse.

After this happened I wouldn't expect it to succeed again, let alone taking good pictures of the starry sky.

But - it happened, and I'm glad it all worked out! On friday night I set an alarm on 1.30 in the morning to take pictures of the stars. But, before I forget to mention this, I spend a couple of hours before that night to research which settings to use to take pictures of a starry sky.

I found out that I absolutely needed to use a tripod (which I have, luckily). I also needed a bright nightsky without any clouds, and when I checked the weather forecast on my phone I saw that it would be bright on friday night. And you also need a camera where you can manually edit the settings (which is most likely always a DSLR or a system camera).

About the settings: there is never one standard setting I can give you for a certain situation, because every situation, especially in nature, is always differnt. Sometimes there's more light than other times, but it also depends on the quality of your camera.

My sister suggested to go outside together, so we did, on friday night on 1.30. I was very tired but it was worth it all!

I know the pictures are probably not as sharp or perfect as you can see in magazines or on photography websites, but I consider myself a beginner still so I'm happy with these results.

I'm already checking the weather forecast on my phone everyday again to see if there will be a bright night sky soon (the days are very bright and hot at the moment, around 35 degrees, a heat wave), but the nights are somehow a little cloudy. So hopefully the stars will be shining soon again for us.

It's so incredibly warm at the moment... this afternoon I'll be going for a lovely swim again (already went twice this week hihi).

Here I will share the pictures I took, feel free to ask more about the way it was all done.

For all of these pictures I used a shutterspeed of 5 seconds and an ISo of 800.
I used my 50mm analog Olympus lens on my Canon 600D with f2/8

I hope you will enjoy the warm summer days (and the cold winter days for the people from the other side of the world...)

Sasja

photo session behind the house

A little documentary about a small one hour photo session with my youngest brother. I'm reading so much information about camera settings online and photographing in certain circumstances, so I can earn as much knowledge as I can. And ofcourse practice it everyday since I received my new camera.
I was planning on going to the forest today with my sister but she couldnt'go with me due to a headache so I asked my brother if he was okay with me taking pictures of him, I am glad he was.
Today I practiced getting the right focus on the eyes in portraits, and he also took some pictures of me after me showing him how to use the manual focusing ring and the right composition.

We went to one of my favorite spots to take pictures, behind a very old barn. I don't believe anyone ever really comes there, I hope it's not someone's backyard but I'm pretty sure it's not ha...
At the moment there are many little pink flowers growing there and still white blossoms on the trees, which I really enjoy looking at and photographing ofcourse. This place is only a few hundred meters behind my house so it's only a few minute walk to reach.
I respect my brothers privacy, which is why I am not posting pictures of his face here. I hope you will enjoy the others anyway.

We took more pictures during the photo session but I will post those on my instagram soon.

have a lovely day,
Sasja

a new camera and a thunderstorm

As I am writing this post the rain is pouring and the thunderstorm is roaring. A few times a minute I can see the lightning through my window, lighting up my bedroom. And the street is full of water. 
It’s June - the temperatures are warm but  are usually saying goodbye with a thunderstorm as their final waves. I’m not worrying about it though, as it will be warm weather soon again in the weekend. And beside that, I love thunderstorms.

I’m not here to write about the weather though, but about my new treasure, my new camera. I just love it so much. In fact, I ordered it last thursday and when the postman didn’t show up the next day it was really working on my nerves since I can be very impatient sometimes, especially when waiting for something I really want to have so badly. I got it on saturday though so I’ve got nothing to complain about...
I ordered the Canon 600d DSLR camera. I never used a DSLR before - all pictures I ever posted on my instagram were taken with my System compact camera, the Canon sx40hs. And although I’m thankful I could use it for all these years, I really felt the urge to get myself a new one after four years. My old camera didn’t give my the results I exactly wanted to have which led to frustration and the feeling of a missing link. I absolutely wanted a camera that could switch lenses and my old camera doesn't have that possibility.
If I’m honest I had no idea where to start looking for when I researched buying a DSLR because there are so many types of them..! So I decided to read a FAQ of one of my favorite photographers, Gingerlillytea, and found out what camera she uses, and decided to get myself the same camera as hers because I was sure that one could take good photographs. As long as I would be as creative as she is though. Yes, I know it’s not a very professional research but I can be very impulsive sometimes and often follow my first impression instead of analyzing it over and over again (which is absolutely not giving me a positive outcome sometimes!)
But in this case it was positive and I’m glad I ordered the camera I wanted to get in the first place.

I decided to use two old analog Olympus lenses that were getting dusty somewhere under by bed, and give them a new life. I’m using an adapter to attach the analog lenses (a 50mm and a 70-210mm) to my camera. The negative side about this (I think?) is because the autofocus doesn’t work because of the adapter. But at the other hand it’s probably good because it forces me to use the manual functions which will make me practice it more automatically instead of switching over to the auto function.

The 50mm lens is so beautiful... It has a lovely depth of field and bokeh as well. I especially want to use it for portraits mostly. Sometimes it’s a little hard getting the focus right in some situations though, especially when I use the 1.8F opening. I know I can also use a smaller diafragma but I’m not so sure which shutter speed to use in combination with that diafragma. To make a long story short: I have to practice a lot. I can't tell so much about the 70-210mm lens because I only took a few pictures with this lens. The 50mm is my favorite so far because it's a very lightweighting lens as well.
Personally I think that the most difficult thing to think about while shooting manually with your DSLR is actually picking the right shutter speed. If you have much knowledge about picking the right shutterspeed or any other advice, please contact me because I would love to learn all of these things.
I will share some pictures with you here, pictures I took with my new camera, mostly with the 50mm 1.8 olympus lens. As you can see some of them (the sheep picture for example) aren't 100 percent sharp on the focusing point but I'm a beginner with this gear.., so it's alright I suppose.

Thank you for taking the time to read and I wish you all a lovely day,

Sasja

our trip to Siegen, Germany

In the nineteen years that I exist I visited a few countries - Belgium, France, Spain and a few days ago I also went to Germany. I had never been there before so it was a whole new experience to me although we only stayed there in our hotel for one day. I noticed that I saw literally no person riding a bike there, which is very strange to us Dutch people - as Dutch cities are crowded with cyclists.
For the ones who might wonder... My sister and I went there for a concert, not for a holiday. So enjoying the surroundings behind my car window was really a bonus to me. And the other bonus was coincidentally running into my favorite singer Alex Pappas from the band before the show... by the shopping center in Siegen. And talking to him for ten minutes.

We actually didn't go into the woods and over the hills because sadly there was no time left for that. But in our 4 hour drive to Siegen I actually got a few chances to take some pictures of the surroundings which I would love to share.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I was still very young when I visited France and Spain. Still a small child. recently I told a friend of mine that I am really dreaming of going to the France countryside someday, and this particular dream seems to come true very soon in July or August. Hopefully I will be able to take some lovely pictures there as well.

Now I will show the moments I captures on our way to Siegen. It's so special to see the landscapes change as you are driving through different countries!

have a lovely day,

Sasja