End of Year Walks - Part 2
As I’d mentioned in the last post, Ann and I had decided to go check out areas of flooding that Wim had told us about. After he’d mentioned how to get there (not far really), I looked online and Reuters had a big story about flooding on the Ijssel River. Ann said, “Isn’t that the river that runs between us and Arnhem?” It is. Given how close it was to us, we couldn’t resist a trip out.
It wasn’t hard to find (read: impossible to miss). At the end of a nearby road is a T that usually has a nice view of a farm and a river off in the distance. Except the river was alongside the road. No farm to be seen, though there were a few trees sticking up out of the water, and a farmhouse off to the left (also entirely above water). We turned left to check the river out as we drove along it, turned around at a town and headed in the other direction for awhile. Strangely, there were no convenient places to stop to take photographs, and we didn’t decide to stop in-town and walk back (it was pretty cold and the last of the morning showers were passing through). We headed north and hit another T and turned left. This time the flooding was on both sides of the road. The flooding was massive, but not devastating. It’s as if the farm fields were designed to be floodplain and all the farm houses and barns were elevated on large mounds that kept them several feet above the floodwaters. We did, however, see one farmer on his tractor - water was about half-way up the huge tires - making his way through floodwaters from his house to the main road, where we suspect his was one of several cars parked next to the bike path and driveway.
There, again, was no good turn around spot so we drove a bit, crossed over the Ijssel River, turned right and drove into a town just across the river. “Hey, want to see if we can find a parking spot to walk around that park north of Arnhem?” Ann replied “Sure.” So I drove into the town (Dieren) as far south as I could go until we hit a parking area next to . . . the National Park Veluwezoom. I guess I haven’t totally lost my innate sense of finding places to hike. We grabbed our jackets and cameras and decided to go for a short hike.
It was a good decision. While one can’t say the conditions were ideal (Fall would have been lovely), it gave us a taste of what lies in our general vicinity when we go west instead of east.
Just before going through the gate into the park proper was a very large forested off-leash dog area. Given there were some large trees in that area and it was fairly open underneath for woodland, we decided to explore that area a bit (carefully side-stepping the occasional evidence that it was a leash-free dog walking area).
I saw a downed log and thought I saw some fungus on top, so I headed over to it. While the bright yellow fungus was heavily damaged, I did find some interesting growth on the opposite side of the log. I decided to make an image. My rustiness with the camera plainly shows, given I forgot to put on a polarizing filter to help cut through the wet glare from the caps. This is why one practices - to keep the mind sharp when evaluating photographic conditions.
Still, I wasn’t expecting to make perfect images from this outing, so making any images at all was a plus. Just call this one a visual exercise.
We entered the park proper and after a few hundred feet hit a fork in the path. One side was paved, the other wasn’t. We opted for the pavement instead of the mud. We wound up walking about a mile, entering a couple of side trails to check out potential images (usually associated with a particularly large tree that was visible from the main walk). But we’d obviously not chosen well, because very quickly there was a lot of undergrowth along our chosen route, so we turned around to head back.
Close to the fork in the trails, things opened up again and Ann thought she had an image she wanted to work with. So I decided to wander around myself to see what I could come up with.
My first image from that area was of a nice tree with extending branches. I think the area would be great on a foggy day. As it was, it was a good exercise for the eye and composition. You can see just how intense the underbrush gets by looking at the background.
Ann was taking her time with her own tree, so I decided to walk around and work with the vibrant green moss and fallen leaves that were present around each of the big trees.
Eventually, I got in even closer, though the color of the mosses really didn’t stand out with this image, so it was better for the tonal contrast that it offered.
After awhile, we headed back to the car. Next time I suspect we’ll go left instead of right on the trail, or go to one of the other entrances in the park. It was good to get out, good to feel like I wanted to make photographs. But it was a bit disappointing on the image-making front. That’s how it goes some times and you really have to have days like that to get yourself ready to perform on those days when you have great opportunities. Face it, even if the images are a bit lacking, it was nice to get out in nature. That’s one of the good things about landscape photography, it’s rarely not time well spent.
But that was not the end of it for 2023. New Years eve was not for naught. On my way to take the recycling out to our bin, I noticed a leaf on our driveway. It was an opportunity to make one final image in 2023.
Again, not the best, but I’m working it and that’s a good thing.
May 2024 be better for all of us in many different ways!