Photos of The Netherlands by Yvonne van der Mey

While I love working in Africa, because of the light, diversity and number of animals you see, I must say that The Netherlands is very beautiful too. Nature has become very scarce in our little country, and you have to look very hard to find wild animals to take pictures of.

On the other hand, we have a rich variety of plants, toadstools and birds, and in Spring and Autumn, the spheres in the woods are fairy-like.

It just takes a different approach, another way of looking at things. Or actually: you don't just "look", but have "to see" the beauty that surrounds us. It stimulates one's creativity, and the more you get into that, the more attractive it becomes.

Toadstools, especially, have become my addiction, in the best kind of way of course. In parts of the year I can be found in the woods on a daily basis, lying on my belly covered in mud, trying to capture the beauty of a toadstool and the insects or webs very often attached to it.

Watch the video of Yvonne taking photographs of toadstools and nature in the Veluwe NL

Bathed in the right light, the woods sparkle like a world filled with diamonds, and when the sun shines after the rain, even an old fern leaf looks gorgeous. The collection of photographs taken in the Netherlands is not as extended as the collection from Africa, but I love the Dutch ones just as much. I hope that when you look at these photographs, you'll understand what I'm trying to say.