Peaceful winter atmosphere at the Edelbach, shortly before it flows into the Kleiner Kamp.

On a gloomy day in January, I was roaming through the western Waldviertel, looking for an unusual winter motif. A fixed point in my search for motifs is always a wet meadow near the village of Schönbach. Here, along a small stream that shortly afterwards flows into an arm of the largest river in the Waldviertel, the Kamp, are some bizarre willows. Unfortunately, there were already plans to cut down these beautiful trees. But thanks to the persuasiveness of two residents of Schönbach, these willows are still allowed to decorate the landscape.

On this day in January, there was a very tenacious high fog and dense cloud cover; the light was very flat and uninteresting. Towards evening I arrived at this wet meadow already quite despondent and a bit frustrated, but was happy to find the trees still there.

So I trudged with my photo equipment through the ankle-high snow on the half-frozen meadow from the path a few hundred metres to the willows when the clouds cleared slightly, and the sun showed itself very cautiously. As I set up and adjusted my tripod and camera, an excellent play of colours developed in the sky. The sun's rays didn't make it to the ground, but the play of clouds compensated me for what had been a disappointing day until then.

The picture comprises 18 individual frames and has an original size of 100x100 cm.

The Waldviertel (Woodquater) is located in the north of Austria. It is known and loved for its pristine landscape, mystical forests, 'wide' skies, breathtaking light moods and, for Austria, lonely stretches. For my "Land in sight" photo project, I have been making large photo landscape portraits of the Waldviertel (Woodquater) for many years. I want to capture the different landscape forms and the light and cloud moods of all seasons.