After seeing a lot of beautiful images of drifting ice at the Markermeer and Ijsselmeer from other photographers, I wanted to see this spectacular happening of nature for myself. Only thing: it is a very long drive from where I live and I found I could not justify the expense of a full tank of gasoline. Fortunately, friend and colleague Andrew George had the same doubts, and by teaming up we could share the expense.
With a stiff wind blowing from the west, the drifting ice naturally was to be found on eastern shores. So we took a day off from work and had a very nice day of photography near Lelystad and Stavoren.
The icestacks had dimished from their original height of 7-10 meters to something more in the range of 3-4 meters. Most of them had muddy footpaths throughout from the herds of visitors from the weekend, so we had to be carefull with our compositions. Also, the surrounding water of the Ijsselmeer was no longer frozen. So no nice structures in the foreground. What we did have was rough water and floating pieces of ice in all sizes, allowing for interesting long shutterspeed shots. With the waves crashing in, we could see the icestacks calving off rapidly. Had we visited a day later, I guess we would have been disappointed with the little ice left. And although we had missed the best days (both with respect to the amount of drifting ice and beautiful sunrises/sunsets), we were happy to have witnessed this spectacle and even got away with some photographs we are quite happy with.
Drifting Ice; Canon 5D Mark II w. 17-40/4L; 13s at F16 and ISO200; ND Grad filter, ND filter, tripod, remote release