The stories behind some of my favourite images…
The Namibian dream
Everyone has places he wants to visit once. When I was 20 years old, my top 2 locations were Namibia and Bolivia. And while Bolivia dropped down in my list throughout the years, Namibia always stayed on top as number 1. But years go by and after travelling to lots of countries I still didn’t made it to Namibia. It was time to change that!
After preparing the trip for almost 2 years as I didn’t want to leave anything to chance (for example I wanted all the permits I needed). It was finally time to go in may 2023 at an age of 34 years. So after 14 years of dreaming I had very high expactations…
And Namibia delivered. What a country!!! By far the best trip I have ever done. The people are super friendly, the food is fantastic, I always felt safe and then you still have all the otherworldly landscapes Namibia has to offer which you can’t find anywere else in the world. And with the right permits and preparations you can have it all by yourself. We have spend hours alone in Deadvlei, Kolmanskop and in the Quiver tree forests. With shooting the stars in Deadvlei as an absolute highlight and dune driving in Walvisbaai for 2 days as a close second.
One tip: Visit Namibia once in your life, you won’t regret it!
The Faroe moment
I have been once to the Faroe Islands and I wanted to visit the Kallur lighthouse when the conditions were looking at their best during the week I was there. With the weather forecast predicting a cloud with rain and sun, it was THE moment to take the ferry and spend a sunset and sunrise at this location.
We got pretty nice conditions in the evening (see picture 7 with the small bird below). But at a certain point it started to rain a little bit and we got back to our tent to eat. While eating a rainbow appeared, I ran back to the spot to take pictures but as soon as I arrived the rainbow fainted. Frustated about missing a rainbow at the most epic location in the Faroe Island I crawled into my sleeping bag for some night rest. The next morning my alarm went off and I hear the raindrops falling on my tent…
But with the ‘missed rainbow shot’ in mind I decided to get out of my tent and wait at the spot itself in the rain. And that was one of my best decisions ever in landscape photography… After standing there for 15 minutes I saw a gap at the horizon where the sun should rise. A few moments later the first light was hitting the mountain and there appeared a double rainbow right next to it. With cliffs rising straight from the sea for 500-600 meters, this was an epic morning I will never forget!!!
The blue mountain
Graenihryggur (green ridge/blue mountain to me) is a hidden gem in the highlands of Iceland that is only accessible in the summer months. After seeing images of the place on a hikers website, I wanted to visit and photograph this place for myself. Only one major problem, there was no marked route towards it and with steep ascents/decents/river crossings it wasn’t sure we would reach the spot as you have to hike several km in very rough terrain…
Attempt nr 1 was with a small group. After several knee deep and very cold river crossings we got stuck at a higher then waist deep river crossing at 700m from the green ridge. Luckely we found a nice back up spot on our way back (see picture 1 below).
Attempt nr 2 was with one of my best friends, I knew which river crossings were to deep so we went for a route through the mountains. But again we got stuck, now at 400m. We saw the green ridge in the distance but the routes down towards the river were to steep, again time for back up spots we saw on our hike (see picture 2-3-4 below).
Attempt nr 3 was with a fellow photographer (Simon) in 2022. The first year the route was marked. It was almost the same route as I did on my second attempt, just with a detour at the end to avoid the steep descents. But now, I was finally there. We camped for 2 days at this location so we could explore the surroundings.
For me, it’s one of the nicest and most adventurous spots in whole Iceland. As a bonus we got fantastic and lots of different conditions on these two days (See picture 5 till 10 below). We got fog, a fantastic sunset with red clouds and even pretty strong northern lights above our tent…
His Kingdom
A picture of an Ibex looking towards the Mer de Glace glacier in Chamonix, France. It is by far my most ‘famous’ picture. It has been published in many newspapers, it has been used by WWF, it has been exhibited in a museum about climate change. It’s also one of my most sold pictures. Crazy enough, this shot wasn’t planned at all, I just got lucky!
I actually had planned a milky way shot above the highest mountains in the alps, including the mont Blanc. I went last minute to France because the weather forecast was looking good for astrophotography. However, I spent 2 nights at that location and while there were no clouds during the day, the clouds always rolled in in the evening. I haven’t seen a single star while I was there.
Luckely I had a back up plan as there was a river close by which acted as a nice foreground leading towards these mountains in the back. Landscape images -> Check!
But by spending 2 full days at that location. I had lots of time during the day and I spent some of it by photographing those Ibexes. I noticed I couldn’t approach the females and the young ones, but the males weren’t scared at all. On the final morning of my trip I opened my tent and this male Ibex was standing just a few meters from my tent. I switched my ultra wide lens to a standard 24-70mm lens and went out. While I was sitting on a rock he walked towards the place on the picture and stood there for 30 seconds while the peaks in the background got the first light from the sunrise.
The Ibex then walked away right next to the rock I was sitting on (like 2 meters away from me). After that I checked the images on the back of my camera and I immediately knew I had taken an amazing image (at least in my opinion)…