Winter Windmills

December 2022: Last week, we had extreme colds in The Netherlands which does not happen that much anymore because of global warming. It caused canals to freeze and we were able to ice skate on most places on the Dutch countryside yesterday morning.

All of these photos were taken on the morning of 18 December 2022 with temperatures of around -8 Celcius. I had always wanted to capture the Dutch windmills this way.

The ultimate Dutch scene: A family ice skating next to the massive windmills over Kinderdijk.

It wasn't that crowded on the ice on the early morning. I took my time to walk around and spotted this minimalistic scene, waited for some skaters to come by to capture another Dutch classic.

The atmosphere was extremely beautiful before the sun came up with pink colours in the sky, and all the foliage covered in frost.

'normal' landscapes suddenly looked magical with the frost and the deep blue hour, before the sun rose.

The first light hitting the windmills and the twilight colours still covering the skies, with an occasional ice skater coming by. These are the best mornings of the year.

When the sun was up higher, you could really see all the white landscapes covered in frost. A great end to this spectacular morning.