Mullerthal woodland

In the weekend of the 9^th of July I went to the Mullerthal in Luxembourg. This for the annual stay with dear friends at a campsite with the main focus on having a good time, food, drinks and if possible doing some sports activities.

The Mullertahl is a region in Luxembourg. Some people call it Luxembourg’s little Switzerland. The Mullerthal is a real paradise for hikers and trail runners. In the Mullerthal you have a lot of trails and natural attractions like bizarre rocks, mossy forests, scenic stream valleys and open meadows. The Mullerthal has a lot of photographic opportunities.

Despite the forecast of sunny and warm weather I decided to leave my MTB at home and only bring my photography gear. My friends did some trail running and hiking and I did two photo hikes in a part of the forest near our campsite.

It was the second time I did woodland photography in the Mullerthal. My main focus was to shoot woodland scenes that could represent one of the above mentioned special features of the Mullerthal. Near our campsite there was a forest with a “canyon” like landscape. The little stream in that forest was almost completely dried up. Still the plants and trees showed their lush greens. I imagined what this forest will look like when it rains and it is misty or when it is autumn.

Due to the harsh light conditions, the wind and the rapidly changing and sparse clouds it was really challenging to get some good exposures. At first I started out shooting infrared with my converted XT2 but as time went by I decided to go for photography in the “visible light”. Most of the time I hiked in that “canyon” like area. My initial thoughts were to find some interesting compositions in the shade.

To get a photograph of a woodland scene that represents its beauty at best you have to visit the location more than once in different weather conditions and seasons. During all those visits you also have to be lucky to get the best weather conditions to photograph.

For me the most important gain of both photo hikes was to get more knowledge of this part of the Mullerthal and its photographic possibilities. Rainy foggy conditions in spring and autumn are certainly more suitable for woodland photography. In a forest in the Mullerthal it is not different.

I have included photographs of some woodland scenes, I hope to revisit in the future in more favourable conditions. All the images included in this post are taken with my Fujifilm XT3 combined with the Fujifilm 35mm F2 lens. Although I had 2 other primes (23mm and 50mm) with me, I prefer using the 35mm focal length (+/- 50 mm full frame) for shooting woodland scenes. I did not use any filters. In Capture One Pro I used the Fujifilm classic chrome film simulation processing the images.

The highlights of the featured image are just a bit blown out. The blazing sunlight was just to harsh the whole time. I did make several different exposures to save those highlights, but due to the windy conditions the result of the HDR merge in Capture One Pro is simply not good enough to present.