The Journey of the Autumn Leaves

Theo Bosboom

Theo Bosboom is a passionate photographer from the Netherlands, specialising in nature and landscapes. In 2013, he turned his back on a successful legal career to pursue his dream of being a fulltime professional photographer. He is regarded as a creative photographer with a strong eye for detail and composition and always trying to find fresh perspectives.

theobosboom.nl

I love autumn. The smell of the moisty forest, the cold nights, the fog in the morning and of course the wonderful colours. It is the season for contemplation, for emotions and for long walks. For nature and landscape photographers autumn is obviously also a great season, offering all kind of possibilities for moody and colourful pictures. But it is not so easy to make something new out it. Trees will be trees and leaves will be leaves. Or?

A fresh perspective

Since 2006 I have spent a couple of days at La Hoegne in the Belgian Ardennes every autumn. It is a beautiful mountain stream that meanders through a nice beech and birch forest, with many small waterfalls, rapids and vortices. Very picturesque, with new treasures around every corner.
After a couple of years, I got the feeling I had photographed the Hoegne from every possible angle. And even worse: the little river became more and more popular among other photographers and I saw the same kind of photographs popping up everywhere. Although it was still great to visit the area, it was time for something new from a photographic point of view. At that time I started wondering how autumn would look if seen from underwater, through the eyes of a fish or another creature living under water. I saw the autumn leaves flowing by, saw them dancing in the water under small waterfalls, getting into vortices and getting struck behind branches in the water. And I started wondering if this all could be photographed.

Getting started

I didn’t have any experience with underwater photography, nor did I have any gear for it. When I checked out the prices of professional underwater housings for my Canon DSLR, I was about to leave the whole idea and find another project with less financial implications. But then I found out that an official underwater housing for my Canon G10 was not expensive at all, costing only around 150 GBP. So I bought one and decided to give it a try in La Hoegne. I looked for a good place in the river, not too deep and with nice trees in autumn colours in the surroundings.