As people may know, I own a Nikon D300s DSLR. And because I want to keep informed about everything that happens around Nikon, I am member of the NCN (“Nikon Club Nederland”). The NCN has every year a club day for its members. This year the club has its 25 year anniversary and for that reason this day was on a special location. They hired the complete Fortress Island…
The Fortress Island (or “Forteiland” as it is called in Dutch) is located in the mouth of the Noordzee Channel and is part of the old Defense Line of Amsterdam. The fortress was built around 1885 and was meant to defend the mount of the Noordzee Channel, which gives access to Amsterdam. During World War II the fortress was part of the “Atlantikwall”, which the explains the newer bunkers on the island.
It was a good organized day. There were interesting lectures.
One lecture was about photography in nature. This lecture was done by Marco de Pauw, who really knows how to entertain his public and yet gives a lot of useful information. His pictures are most beautiful. He gives workshops in “De Biesbos”. I hope to attend one day one of these workshops.
The other lecture was done by Joost van den Broek, a rewarded photographer who show a number of very interesting portraits and told so very good to know thing on how to make those pictures.
There were sessions on “Nikon Creative Lighting System”, which I skipped as it for now not interesting for me yet, but for those who own the right equipment it must have been very informative. But there was also a opportunity to try all kind of lenses, including some very nice and of course very expensive telelenses. Fun to play around with for once.
And there was a competition to make the best pictures that shows the atmosphere of the event. I did not attend, because I mainly wanted to make pictures of this unique location. And photographing people, especially people I don’t know, is not really my thing.
Although some rain and wind,the weather was not too bad. The temperature was nice. So there was not much to complain about that.
But most of all, an location as the Fortress Island is awesome to make very nice pictures! Big strong walls to protect the fortress…
Long tunnels, where I hardly can stand straight, leading all around the fortress…
The Western part of the island is reserved for breeding birds, so visitors are not allowed to go there…
Within the fortress you can find some great wall paintings…
I made many pictures yesterday. The Fortess Island is a great location to make pictures. Of course I will process more of the pictures that I made yesterday. Some I may place on my photo-page and other may end with the screen savers on my computers.
But it has to be said, it is great that the NCN made this wonderful day for us possible.