Last week, sitting on our terrace, I pointed my Canon 5D Mark IV with the Sigma 100–400mm toward something both familiar and almost impossible to truly grasp: the Moon.

What we see as a calm, steady presence has a violent origin. The leading theory suggests that around 4.5 billion years ago, a Mars-sized body—often called Theia—collided with the early Earth. The debris from that impact eventually coalesced into the Moon. A cosmic accident, shaping everything that followed.

And yet, most illustrations fail to capture its true scale and distance.

In books, the Moon is often shown close to Earth, almost within reach. In reality, it orbits at an average distance of about 384,400 kilometers. You could line up roughly 30 Earths between them. That space is vast—so vast that the Moon, despite its size, appears small in our sky.

And still, its influence is enormous.

It stabilizes Earth’s axial tilt, helping maintain a relatively stable climate. Its gravitational pull drives the tides, shaping coastal ecosystems and possibly even playing a role in the early development of life.

Captured at 400mm, this image brings it closer—compressing that immense distance into something we can hold in a frame.

A reminder that some of the most distant things are also the most essential.

#Moon #LunarPhotography #Astrophotography #Canon5DMarkIV #Sigma100400 #Telephoto #NightPhotography #Space #Astronomy #TheiaImpact #MoonFormation #CosmicHistory #EarthAndMoon #Tides #GravitationalForces #ScienceInNature #Universe #NightSky #Stargazing #SpaceLovers #NatureAndScience #EarthFromSpace #HiddenScale #CosmicPerspective #LightInDarkness #ThroughTheLens #ByMaikeldeBakker #MaikeldeBakkerPhotography #WonderingLens

Some lessons don’t start with words, but with a simple challenge.

As my wife is getting used to her Sigma 100–400mm, one of the hardest parts has been not the zoom—but finding and locking focus on something small, fast, and unpredictable. So I gave her something to return to whenever the scene felt overwhelming: a hoverfly.

I picked up my Canon 5D Mark IV with the Canon 100–400mm, found a member of the family Syrphidae (hoverflies), zoomed all the way in, took a shot, and showed her what was possible. “Whenever you’re unsure what to shoot,” I told her, “find a hoverfly and practice.”

Hoverflies are perfect teachers. They mimic bees and wasps, yet they hover with remarkable precision, holding position mid-air thanks to wingbeats of up to 200 times per second. Small, erratic, easily lost in the frame—exactly the kind of subject that forces you to slow down, anticipate, and truly see.

Throughout the day, I noticed her raising her camera at moments I couldn’t even follow. Practicing. Missing. Trying again.

And then, at the end of the day, she showed me this image.

Taken with her Canon 7D Mark II and Sigma 100–400mm, fully zoomed in.

Progress doesn’t always shout. Sometimes it hovers quietly in front of you—waiting to be seen.

#Hoverfly #Syrphidae #Zweefvlieg #WildlifePhotography #NaturePhotography #Telephoto #Sigma100400 #Canon7DMarkII #CanonPhotography #LearningPhotography #PhotographyJourney #PracticeMakesProgress #InTheField #NatureLovers #MacroVibes #CloseUpNature #InsectPhotography #FocusPractice #PatienceAndPractice #WildlifeMoments #OutdoorPhotography #PhotographyLife #ThroughTheLens #NatureObservation #ScienceInNature #TinyWorlds #FieldWork #ByMaikeldeBakker #MaikeldeBakkerPhotography #WonderingLens

Heavy snow, slow motion lives

Heavy snow has a way of forcing the world to slow down. Yesterday that became very tangible when I watched a van and a car carefully pass each other on an icy, snow-covered road. Weather alerts were active across the Netherlands, and for many people this meant stress, risk, and necessary travel. For me, it meant something else: a rare chance to observe how landscapes and human behavior change under extreme conditions.

This image was taken handheld with the Canon 5D Mark IV and the Sigma 100–400mm, pushed hard at ISO 12800 and f/29 to hold enough depth and structure in the chaos of falling snow. In conditions like this, photography becomes a balance between physics and patience. Snow scatters light, reduces contrast, and confuses autofocus systems — your camera doesn’t “see” snow as atmosphere, only as obstacles. You have to work with that limitation, not against it.

What fascinated me most wasn’t just the snow itself, but the rare phenomenon that accompanied the storm: lightning during snowfall. Cold air aloft combined with moisture-rich clouds from the relatively warm sea can create enough vertical energy for electrical discharge — something we still rarely witness here.

If you don’t have to be on the road during days like these: grab your camera instead. But walk carefully. Nature may slow us down, yet it always gives something back to those who stop and look.

#snowstorm #winterphotography #extremeweather #documentaryphotography
#climateobservation #weatherwatching #snowinthenetherlands #handheldphotography
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#environmentalawareness #pixelfedphotography
#ByMaikeldeBakker #MaikeldeBakkerPhotography #wonderinglens
#ThroughTheWonderingLens

A 1mm mushroom carrying an almost-as-big droplet

Sometimes nature hides its most extraordinary scenes in places most people never look. While walking through the Kampina near Oisterwijk with my wife Christel and my sister-in-law Hanneke — a birthday walk and lunch gift from last October — I noticed something no taller than a grain of rice. There, growing out of the lush green moss on a tree trunk, stood a tiny Mycena adscendens. Barely 1 mm tall, delicate as a whisper… and balancing a raindrop almost as large as its cap.

Photographing something that small is always a technical puzzle. Tripods were impossible on the tree bark, the light was miserable — wet, grey, and sleepy — and the mushroom itself looked like shiny plastic thanks to the moisture. So I relied on my Canon 5DsR paired with the MP-E 65mm, shooting handheld with a flashlight as an improvised lightsource.
1/250s, ISO 3200, and the fixed aperture of the MP-E — a setup that pushes both the photographer and the camera to their limits. At this magnification even your own heartbeat becomes camera shake.

But somehow, everything aligned. The droplet clung to the cap with perfect surface tension, turning the whole scene into a tiny physics lesson: cohesion, adhesion, and gravity negotiating their delicate balance on a 1 mm stage.

Moments like this remind me why I love macro photography — you don’t just take a picture; you discover a world that was already there, quietly waiting.

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The Language of Light and Leaf

Sometimes, beauty hides in the smallest and simplest things — like the way sunlight passes through a single leaf. During my walk in Surea, I noticed how the low morning sun lit the trees from behind, turning their leaves into glowing jewels of orange, yellow, and green. I raised my Canon 7D Mark II with the Sigma 100–400mm lens and focused on a single leaf, backlit by the warm sunlight.

But what you see here isn’t just colour — it’s chemistry in motion. When autumn arrives and the days grow shorter, trees start reclaiming the nutrients stored in chlorophyll — the pigment that gives leaves their green colour and fuels photosynthesis. As chlorophyll breaks down, other pigments emerge: carotenoids, responsible for yellows and oranges, and anthocyanins, which add red and purple tones. These pigments have been there all along — just hidden behind the green curtain of summer.

So, in a way, autumn is nature’s gentle way of revealing what’s always been there, waiting for the right light to be seen. Through my lens, it’s a reminder that endings can be beautiful too.

#AutumnMagic #BacklitBeauty #MacroNature #LeafArt #AutumnColors #NatureLovers #CanonPhotography #Sigma100400 #MacroShot #NatureMacro #LeafLover #BacklitLeaf #ForestMagic #LightAndColor #SureaForest #NatureInDetail #MacroPhotography #Canon7DMarkII #FineArtNature #AutumnVibes #ChlorophyllBreakdown #Carotenoids #Anthocyanins #ScienceInNature #NaturalWonder #SeasonChange #ForestWalks #DutchNature #NetherlandsNature #NaturePhotography #NatureArt #WildernessBeauty #ColorfulNature #ArtInNature #MacroDetail #HiddenBeauty #LightPlay #PhotoStory #ByMaikeldeBakker #ByMaikelPhotography

Los Angeles Post-Punk Outfit Science In Nature Cut a Jagged Groove in “Edge Of A Line”

https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://post-punk.com/los-angeles-post-punk-outfit-science-in-nature-cut-a-jagged-groove-in-edge-of-a-line/